Ethnocentrism

• Main Author: Keith, Kenneth D.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley 2011
• Subjects: Sumner; greenlander*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp206; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp206; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp206

Abstract Ethnocentrism is the tendency of individuals to elevate their own culture as the standard against which they judge others, and to see their own as superior to others. In the nineteenth century Charles noted that tribes were more sympathetic to their own groups, first used the term ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism involves perceptions of cross‐cultural difference, can underlie cultural conflict and negative stereotypes, and is probably universal among humans. Sumner, in his early work, noted numerous cultural groups (e.g., Caribs, Greenlanders, Jews, Kiowa, Lapps, Seri) that had words identifying their own groups as uniquely “people,” “chosen,” “men,” or in other ways superior.