ethnicity

n. Ethnicity refers to an ethnic quality or affiliation with a particular group usually based on a presumed common ancestry. Members of an ethnic group often share common cultural, behavioral, linguistic, or religious practices, and they often constitute an identifiable sociological group within a larger nationstate. Members of an ethnic group also share genetic similarities and physical features due to endogamy (mating or marriage within the same ethnic group), which is reinforced by cultural familiarity, societal pressure, and propinquity. The word is derived from the Greek word ethnos, which means "people of a nation or a tribe."

Within and outside psychology, the term ethnicity has often been used interchangeably with the terms culture and race. In many cases, ethnicity is used to refer to broad groups (e.g., people of European, African, or Asian descent) because the concept of race is fraught with controversy. Race has generally been defined with respect to physical characteristics (e.g., skin color, hair type, facial features) with presumed biological bases for the observed differences that extend to the groups’ behavioral characteristics, but the classifications of people into races have been criticized as arbitrary social constructions. In other cases, ethnicity is used in references to cultural characteristics of a particular group, such as the norms, values, attitudes, behavior, and meaning systems that are shared by an identifiable segment of a population. Finally, ethnicity is discussed with focus on the experiences of non-White minority populations, such as minority status, discrimination, and racism.

Although there is no standard definition of ethnicity, scholars agree that ethnicity must be considered as a multidimensional and dynamic construct rather than as a static categorical variable. Psychological research on ethnicity has encompassed multiple related constructs. One aspect of ethnicity that has received much scholarly attention is ethnic identity, an aspect of one's identity associated with ethnic group membership. Research has shown that ethnic identity constitutes a more salient source of identity for individuals from ethnic minority groups, that strength and importance of ethnic identity can vary over time and context, and that it has implications for mental health and well-being of ethnic minority individuals. Different questionnaires have been developed in efforts to assess the levels of various dimensions of ethnic identity. Another aspect of scholarly work on ethnicity has examined psychological variables that may be culturally based. For example, psychosocial experiences of contemporary African Americans may be understood as reflecting the continued influences of African cultural dimensions such as collective survival, oral expressions, and spirituality. Finally, social and organizational psychology research has examined interethnic relations and the effects of interethnic contacts on individual and group outcomes.

- sok