ethnocentrism

n. Ethnocentrism is the nearly universal tendency to view the world and to judge others primarily from the perspective of one's own in-group culture. Ethnocentrism often entails the overt or covert belief that one's in-group is the most important group and that its culture is superior to those of other groups. This bias toward viewing the characteristics of one's in-group as the golden standard is often accompanied by derogation of characteristics associated with out-groups. Ethnocentric behaviors entail cooperation among in-group members and lack of cooperation with or hostility toward members of out-groups. The group boundaries are typically drawn along readily identifiable features such as language, religion, or physical features that are socially meaningful. The particular markers of the group distinction may vary over time and are shaped by culture.

Although ethnocentrism, or in-group favoritism, of any particular ethnic or cultural group likely involves a complex set of historical and contextual factors, laboratory studies have shown that ethnocentric behaviors can be elicited with even the most arbitrary and trivial group distinctions and that such behaviors can occur in the absence of reciprocity or any opportunities for gains in the interest of the self or of the in-group (such as in classic minimal group paradigms in experimental social psychology). In fact, social cognition studies have indicated that categorization and discrimination of group memberships can occur at a rapid and preconscious level. This led some scholars to conceptualize ethnocentric bias as an inevitable perceptual consequence of social categorization. On the other hand, there is also evidence that social status of the in-group can influence the extent to which group members show ethnocentric bias, with some studies showing that higher-status groups demonstrated more ethnocentrism and other studies showing that lower-status groups show more ethnocentrism. Metaanalytic evidence suggests that in-group bias is higher for high-status groups in artificial group settings but higher for low-status groups in realistic group settings.

Various theories for origins of ethno- centrism have been offered. Social identity theory argues that groups are motivated to achieve positive group distinctiveness, which in turn serves to protect and enhance a favorable social identity for group members. Social identity theory proposes that the strength of individual identification with the group is generally associated with the degree of ingroup favoritism. Realistic group conflict theory argues that ethnocentrism arises out of real or perceived threat to an in-group's interest and is motivated by psychological need for power, control, and enhanced collective selfesteem of the group. Genetic similarity theory asserts that the level of conflict among organisms is a direct inverse function of the proportion of shared genes; thus ethnocentrism is likely to occur between groups that are genetically dissimilar to each other. Recent evidence points to a complex set of factors that appear to determine the motivation for eth- nocentrism and suggests that in-group bias cannot be understood apart from the social context in which it is expressed. Specifically, ethnocentric bias may serve multiple functions, including achievement of instrumental goals (such as promotion of change in social status of groups) or expressive function (such as promotion of positive group identity), and the strength and the expression of in-group bias may depend on not only the hierarchical status of the in-group but also the perceived stability of the group status.

The concept of ethnocentrism has been applied to research in marketing, consumer behavior, and organizational behavior as well as in analyses of ethnic conflicts. Finally, in the context of the multicultural psychology movement in the United States and critical psychology movement primarily in Europe, psychology as a discipline has been criticized as being ethnocentric in its Western bias with respect to the field's epistemology, theories, and methods.       

- sok