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Ethnocentrism

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 ETHNOCENTRISM

Boris Bizumic

Research School of Psychology

The Australian National University

Reference:

Bizumic, B. (2015). Ethnocentrism. In R. A. Segal & K. von Stuckrad (Eds.), Vocabulary for the

study of religion (Vol. 1, pp. 533–539). Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

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 Abstract

Ethnocentrism is a slippery concept that different disciplines and individuals use in diverse,
inconsistent, and incompatible ways. Ethnocentrism is usually defined as a kind of ethnic or cultural
group egocentrism, which involves a belief in the superiority of one’s own group, including its
values and practices, and often contempt, hatred, and hostility towards those outside the group.
Although the focus of ethnocentrism is most often an ethnic or cultural group, certain usages of
ethnocentrism refer to many, or even all, kinds of groups. This entry will present a critical overview
of different usages of ethnocentrism. It will first review original usages of the concept. Next, it will
critically review usages of the concept across disciplines, and will provide a comprehensive and
internally consistent definition of ethnocentrism. Finally, it will discuss four links between
ethnocentrism and religion.

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 Ethnocentrism

The concept of ethnocentrism was originally used by sociologists and anthropologists, but over time
other disciplines have adopted and used it widely. Nevertheless, despite the wide usage (or perhaps
because of it), ethnocentrism has been a slippery concept, with varied, loose, and inconsistent
usages. Ethnocentrism is often grouped together, or even used interchangeably, with concepts such
as racism, nationalism, discrimination, prejudice, and xenophobia. Like these related concepts,
ethnocentrism is considered an undesirable phenomenon. Accordingly, a major function of most
usages of ethnocentrism is to condemn it as negative, wrong, and harmful, and the imperative is to
avoid, reduce, and eliminate it. Although various authors have often questioned whether it is
possible to eliminate ethnocentrism, it is rare to use the concept with positive connotations, even
though at times ethnocentrism has been perceived as valuable (Rorty 1986).
In general, two conceptual fallacies have affected the study of ethnocentrism. The first fallacy refers
to the tendency to use the concept of ethnocentrism to denote diverse and unrelated phenomena. For
example, ethnocentrism for some is a positive evaluation of one’s own group (Turner et al. 1987),
and for others it is a hostile anti-minority attitude (Altemeyer 2003). The second fallacy pertains to
the tendency to study the phenomenon of ethnocentrism using different concepts. For example, the
anthropologist Franz Boas, one of the most vocal opponents and critics of ethnocentrism, often
wrote about phenomena that others labeled ethnocentrism, but did not use the concept itself in his
major writings (Boas 1940). It is no doubt due to the early broad, imprecise, and loose usages that
ethnocentrism has meant different things to different disciplines and individuals. Accordingly, in
addition to historical interest, it is important to understand the original usages of ethnocentrism as
these have affected most future usages.

Original Usages
The phenomenon of ethnocentrism has been familiar to people from diverse philosophical, cultural,
and religious traditions for a long time (e.g. Mozi, Herodotus, Montaigne), but the concept itself
emerged relatively recently. Despite a widespread belief that the first usage of the concept was in
1906 by the sociologist William G. Sumner, its origin is not straightforward. The concept was
probably introduced by the sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz in several books published in the
second half of the nineteenth century. Gumplowicz saw ethnocentrism as a similar concept to
geocentricism (a belief that the Earth is the center of the universe) and anthropocentrism (a belief
that humans are the center of the Earth) — but focused on one’s own ethnic group, with the
assumption that it is better than any other (Gumplowicz 1881).
Other social scientists before Sumner had also used the concept. For example, the anthropologist
William J. McGee used it in several publications. His ethnographic study of Seri Indians described
their way of thinking to be “tribe-centered (or ethnocentric)” because “they view extraneous things,
especially those of animate nature, with reference to the tribe” (1898: 154). McGee described Seri
Indians as a tribe with an exceptionally high level of ethnocentrism, so high that they passionately

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glorified the tribe, demanded blood purity, and showed intense hostility towards everyone else.
Sumner did not coin the concept of ethnocentrism, but he popularized it. Although Sumner cited
Gumplowicz’s books and McGee’s work with Seri Indians, he failed to mention that anyone had
used the concept before him (Sumner 1906). Accordingly, many later social scientists assumed that
Sumner invented the concept, and his views on ethnocentrism, therefore, had strong influence on
future conceptualizations. Sumner saw ethnocentrism as tribal or ethnic group egocentrism: “view
of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated
with reference to it” (Sumner 1906: 13). He also argued that ethnocentrism incorporates very strong
feelings of attachment to the group; devotion, cohesion, and fellowship between group members; as
well as a strong preference for the ingroup over all outgroups, rejection of outgroups, concern with
blood purity, perceptions of ingroup superiority, and a tendency to value ingroup interests over
outgroup interests (Sumner 1906; 1911). Sumner, a Social Darwinist, argued that ethnocentrism
helps ethnic groups survive, enabling them to exist amidst threats from ever-present enemies. He
assumed that outgroup hostility, hatred, and contempt are necessary outcomes of strong ingroup
love. A later analysis of Sumner’s writings identified twenty-three aspects of ethnocentrism (LeVine
and Campbell 1972).
Sumner argued that ethnocentrism is not only a characteristic of non-industrial societies, but also of
modern nation-states, where it is, however, expressed in a subtle and nuanced way. Sumner,
therefore, seemed to assume that attitudes and ideologies that characterize modern-day patriotism
and its exaggerated form, nationalism, are peculiar expressions of ancient ethnocentrism at the
contemporary national state level.

Usages Across Disciplines

Ethnocentrism has been a fertile and popular concept across a variety of disciplines, including
anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, philosophy, education, and the academic
study of religion. Although these different disciplines at times saw ethnocentrism as a characteristic
of virtually any group (e.g., gender groups, such as male ethnocentrism or female ethnocentrism, or
artificially created groups in the laboratory), the most frequent usages of ethnocentrism refer to
relatively large-scale ethno-cultural groups.
It seems that Sumner’s own descriptions and illustrations of ethnocentrism included so many
different attitudes toward one’s own and other groups that almost any kind of pro-ingroup and anti-
outgroup attitude could be seen as ethnocentrism. Furthermore, it appears that, given the complexity
of the early usages, different disciplines and individuals picked whichever usages suited them.
Accordingly, whereas certain usages have focused on intergroup phenomena, such as beliefs in the
superiority of the ingroup culture over others, others have focused on outgroup attitudes, such as
hostility toward ethnic outgroups, ethnic minorities, or minorities in general, and still others have
focused on intragroup phenomena, such as positivity toward one’s own group. Certain usages were
broad and encompassed most of these phenomena, whereas others focused on a single phenomenon.
The most frequent usage of ethnocentrism denotes an attitude of strong, often uncritical, superiority
of one’s own ethnic or cultural group. There are, however, different versions of this usage. Certain

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usages have focused on explicit glorification of one’s own group, such as declaring that one’s own
culture is superior to others in all or most relevant respects. Others have focused on implicit
glorification of the ingroup. For example, when anthropologists discuss the need to transcend
ethnocentrism, they usually see ethnocentrism as a phenomenon where one’s own culture serves as
a reference point from which other cultures are judged (Kroeber 1948), and this implies that one
perceives one’s own culture to be at least somewhat better (and more correct) than others. Similarly,
the philosopher Tzvetan Todorov views ethnocentrism as an uncritical conviction that one’s cultural
values are the only valid ones and that these should be relevant everywhere (1993). This usage has
been most prominent in anthropology and cross-cultural research. Being ethnocentric is seen as a
fundamental barrier to practicing anthropology and conducting cross-cultural research. Given that a
researcher in these fields attempts to understand other cultural groups, his or her own ethnocentrism
is an obstacle to successful research. Accordingly, it is often believed that to understand a culture,
one must study it without imposing one’s own cultural background on the practices and
characteristics of other cultures. If, however, one fails to transcend ethnocentrism, one may perceive
other cultures as less good, right, or valuable, and may misunderstand the research subject.
The conceptualization of ethnocentrism as preference is closely related to the conceptualization of
ethnocentrism as superiority. For example, the anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits writes that
ethnocentrism is, “the point of view that one's own way of life’s to be preferred to all others.
Flowing logically from the process of early enculturation, most individuals have this feeling about
their own culture, whether they verbalize it or not” (Herskovits 1972: 21). Whereas ethnocentrism
as superiority has objective connotations (i.e., one’s own culture is objectively better than others),
ethnocentrism as preference has subjective connotations (i.e., one’s own culture is subjectively
more important to the person than other cultures are). Herskovits did not explicitly distinguish
between the two connotations in this way, but one may clearly show preference for one’s own
culture, without necessarily believing that one's own culture is the best. Similarly, ethnocentrism at
times has been used to denote group selfishness — so that the interests of one’s own group
outweigh interests of others (Sumner 1911; Adorno et al. 1950). For example, the sociologist Pierre
Van den Berghe described ethnocentrism as a “rudimentary ideology” (1981) that protects the
interests of the ethnic ingroup. Accordingly, certain usages reflect a sense of strong ethno-cultural
identity — so strong that it might impinge on the interests of the others.
Another closely-related usage is seeing ethnocentrism as explicit rejection of the unlike, that is,
other groups. For example, the authoritarian personality research tradition in psychology, led by
Theodor W. Adorno and his colleagues (1950), saw ethnocentrism as a general frame of mind that is
concerned with rejection of all those outside one’s own group. Furthermore, others have perceived
ethnocentrism as a kind of psychological sheltered island, which excludes all other groups (Allport
1954). These usages most often assume that ethnocentrism also involves hatred and hostility
towards those outside the group, but these highly negative sentiments, although present in many
usages, are in no way necessary, and rejection can be due to more benevolent reasons, such as
difficulties in interactions or discomfort with the unfamiliar. It is, nevertheless, important to point
out that certain usages of ethnocentrism refer to hostility, hatred, contempt, and disdain towards
other groups (e.g. Adorno et al. 1950; LeVine and Campbell 1972; Altemeyer 2003).

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Other usages of ethnocentrism have primarily focused on a set of positive intragroup attitudes,
which vary in their levels of strength. Occasionally, ethnocentrism has been used to refer to group
self-esteem or a generalized positive evaluation of one’s own group (Turner et al. 1987). Similarly,
the sociologist Oliver C. Cox argued that sociologists often think of ethnocentrism as “a social
attitude which expresses a community of feeling in any group” (2000: 70). Although usages of
ethnocentrism have rarely implicated purely intragroup phenomena, certain usages consider a belief
in passionate devotion and attachment to the ingroup and a sense of group cohesion and ingroup
solidarity to be fundamental aspects of ethnocentrism (e.g., Adorno et al. 1950; LeVine and
Campbell 1972; Brewer and Campbell 1976).
Recently, psychologists Boris Bizumic, John Duckitt, and colleagues have conducted an in-depth
conceptual and empirical investigation into ethnocentrism (Bizumic et al. 2009; Bizumic and
Duckitt 2012). They argued that ethnocentrism is a multidimensional construct, which involves
specific intragroup and intergroup attitudes, which give a strong sense of importance to one’s own
ethnic group over others and also over individual group members. The authors drew on various
usages of ethnocentrism (some of which are presented above) and identified different themes within
them. They argued on conceptual, theoretical, and empirical grounds that ethnocentrism involves
six facets, which all express a central idea of one’s own ethnic and cultural group importance. This
conceptualization rejected mere ingroup love, attachment, or identification as well as outgroup
hatred, hostility, and contempt as aspects of ethnocentrism, as none of these necessarily involves a
very strong sense of group importance. As a result, according to this conceptualization,
ethnocentrism consists of two intragroup facets (strong devotion to the ethnic ingroup and
intragroup cohesion) and four intergroup facets (preference for the ethnic group over others, belief
in group superiority, readiness to exploit other groups for the sake of the ingroup, and demand for
ethnic purity). This conceptual analysis was accompanied with a construction of a fifty-eight-item
scale to measure ethnocentrism across different cultures. Subsequent cross-cultural empirical
studies, indeed, showed that there are the six distinct facets of ethnocentrism, which are parts of two
higher-order expressions of intragroup and intergroup ethnocentrism, which in turn are parts of a
unitary and general concept of ethnocentrism. This approach, therefore, provides a
conceptualization of ethnocentrism that is relatively broad, but unitary and coherent.

Ethnocentrism and Religion

Various disciplines have linked, both explicitly and implicitly, ethnocentrism and religion. There are
four main links between the two. First, religion is often a very significant attribute of ethnic groups,
and as is the case with other attributes, giving strong importance to the religion of one’s own ethnic
group is an aspect of ethnocentrism. Early writers on ethnocentrism often linked religion and
ethnocentrism in this way. For example, Sumner wrote that a characteristic of ethnocentrism is that
each group “exalts its own divinities” (1906: 13). Having a unique religion is an important
differential characteristic for many ethnic groups, but even when ethnic groups adopt world
religions, such as Christianity, they may adapt them to fit their own ethnic groups. For example,
Orthodox Christianity is very explicitly tied to specific ethnic churches (e.g. Russian, Bulgarian or
Greek Orthodox churches). Furthermore, at times (e.g. among Tibetans), religious and ethnic group

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memberships almost completely overlap. Nevertheless, expressions of ethnocentrism are not
necessarily related to religion. This may be the case when a religious group consists of people from
different ethnicities, different religious groups exist in the same ethnic group, or most members of
an ethnic group are not religious.
Second, religion can justify ethnocentrism. Many ethnic groups use religious beliefs, stories, and
myths to affirm the importance and centrality of the ethnic group in one’s own life and in the world.
For example, in non-industrial societies, the name of god is sometimes equivalent to the name of the
tribe. In other ethnic groups, religious myths teach that the world’s origin is within one’s own
group. Similarly, other religious ideas, such as God’s “chosen people,” explicitly use religion to
enforce ethnocentric thinking (Sumner 1906). Many ethnic groups have also called upon god during
conflict with another group. For example, both Palestinians and Israelis invoke the same god in the
idea of a God-given holy land to justify their sense of entitlement to the same land. This, in turn,
also justifies their own ethnocentric attitudes, such as a sense of devotion, group cohesion,
superiority, or exploitativeness.
Third, there is a body of literature that investigates links between ethnocentrism and religiosity at
the individual level. This research suggests that ethnocentric individuals are more likely to be
religious. For example, a chapter in Theodor W. Adorno and colleagues’ classic book on
authoritarian personality (1950) investigated the relationship of ethnocentrism with religiosity. Their
work showed that ethnocentric individuals were particularly likely to report that they were religious,
tended to engage in frequent religious practices, and found religion to be very important in their
lives. Nevertheless, the exact link between religiosity and ethnocentrism at the individual level has
never been fully ascertained — even though studies suggest relatively consistent links between
ethnocentrism and certain forms of religiosity — primarily religious fundamentalism (Altemeyer
2003).
Finally, ethnocentric characteristics can apply to religious groups to the extent that these groups
may claim to posses a unique culture, which is organized around religious beliefs. In this instance,
one views religious groups as a particular kind of cultural group, which may acquire expressions of
ethnocentrism. Accordingly, beliefs in the superiority of one’s own religious group, a sense of
intragroup cohesion, or rejection of members of other religious groups are related to the common
culture of one’s own religious group, but not ethnicity. In fact, the psychologist Bob Altemeyer
(2003) used the term religious ethnocentrism to apply the concept of ethnocentrism to religious
groups. This usage of the concept, however, deviates from a more widespread view that
ethnocentrism is uniquely related to ethno-cultural groups.
A concept in the study of religion that comes closest to an exaggerated sense of ethnocentrism in
religious groups is religious fundamentalism, which Gabriel A. Almond and colleagues describe in a
very similar way to how others describe ethnocentrism (Almond, Appleby, and Sivan 2003). These
authors emphasise that religious fundamentalism involves beliefs, feelings, and practices that
exaggerate the view that one's own religion and religious group are more important than others. For
example, they describe religious fundamentalism as a set of characteristics that involve beliefs that
one’s religious ingroup is pure, sinless, and divinely chosen, has the ultimate truth, should reject all

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sinful and impure outgroups, and should be prepared to fight against them. At the same time, they
also see religious fundamentalism as a set of characteristics that involve beliefs that the religious
ingroup is more important than individual ingroup members, because religious fundamentalism
emphasizes group integration, devotion to the ingroup, and complete commitment of one’s own life
to the religious group and its interests. Religious fundamentalism, therefore, is in part a strong sense
of religious group self-importance. It appears to be a similar construct to ethnocentrism, but with
the focus on religious, not ethnic, ingroup. Nevertheless, it is probably more correct to say that a
very important aspect of religious fundamentalism is religious ethnocentrism (cf. Altemeyer 2003),
but that religious fundamentalism has a number of additional characteristics, which pertain
primarily to religion (e.g. beliefs in Messianism) and are not necessary or central to ethnocentrism.
In sum, ethnocentrism has been a widely, though inconsistently, used concept across various
disciplines. Even though the popularity of the concept has waxed and waned over time, the concept
is here to stay. For example, the political scientists Donald D. Kinder and Cindy D. Kam (2009)
have argued that the concept of ethnocentrism is highly relevant and can explain many current
political phenomena in a modern, multicultural, and democratic country, such as the US.
Furthermore, ethnocentrism has a more ominous effect as it undoubtedly permeates all current
disciplines that study social phenomena, including ethnocentrism itself, as most ideas, theories, and
research methods, developed in Western countries, are used to study and understand the whole of
humankind.

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