Our Kind, Different Worlds

Ethnocentrism is defined by our tendency to judge other groups or cultures based upon our own standards establishing

Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of one’s own group. It’s a universal habit that ethnocentric individuals tend to compare and judge other cultural practices to be inferior. Ethnocentrism encourages the solidarity in groups; it creates the feeling of belonging and drives the individuals to build pride in the group. However, ethnocentrism hinders the understanding of the cooperation with other groups. With the sense of superiority, there is little incentive to interact with the inferior groups. While making generalization about the culture and customs of others, ethnocentric individuals aren’t being aware that they tend to make false assumptions regarding the cultural differences. Furthermore, extreme ethnocentrism is likely to

Ethnocentrism is defined as the tendency to judge other people and cultures by the standards of one’s own culture and to believe that the behavior, customs, norms, values and other characteristics of one’s own group are natural, valid, and correct while those of other’s are unnatural, invalid and incorrect. For example, in Funny in Farsi Firoozeh experiences ethnocentrism from citizens here

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive” (Mahatma). Our culture identifies who we are and how we behave in social environments and provides us with a foundation in which to live our lives and raise our families. Each individual culture has certain customs and courtesies that are important. Exposure to the cultures of others can be intimidating and can leave a person feeling confused and unsure about how they fit in (Schaefer 60). Culture shock can leave a person feeling out of place in an unfamiliar culture (Schaefer 60). Our diverse societies demand understanding and acceptance of other cultures. Learning and understanding these cultures before being

Some may ask what it means to be a part of a specific culture. It may be believed that it merely means to share the same qualities of race, language, and social beliefs. What is not really known are the rise of expectations to fill, repressed wants and needs, or even the binding religious beliefs. A person must begin to recognize the holdings a culture may have on them and how it affects their free will as an individual.

Exploring different cultures as well as your own in order to understand the various ways they do things compared to our own can be enlightening as well as challenging. The main challenge comes from being used to your own culture that it is difficult to view a different culture without any personal bias. Being born and raised in a culture and getting used to those norms of everyday life contributes to the bias that one may show, believing that their own culture is superior to another. This type of thought process is called ethnocentrism. But with the use of an etic and emic approach to analyze your own culture and different cultures will help eliminate ethnocentrism. Using an outsider’s

Ethnocentrism:(late 15th century). Individuals judge other groups relative to their own based on langue behavior customs and religion. When the Spaniards came to the new worlds they saw that the natives were more advanced in agriculture. The natives also had a different customs and languages. Ethnocentrism, or the idea of it, placed natives in forced labor and segregated them based on their customs.

It is so easy to access your own culture to examine aspects; however, this paper will flip the script using an etic view to gain a better understanding of American culture from an outsider’s perspective while taking on an insider’s perspective to examine another culture, Japan using an emic view. Cultural relativism tells us that we must examine beliefs and activities of other cultures with a meaningful understanding of the context of that particular culture, background, history, and practices from an emic perspective without prejudice or superiority (Crapo, 2013).

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's culture is the best compared to others, from the view of that cultures standards and beliefs. Culture shock is the feeling of when we experience a culture different then our own. Ethnocentrism and culture shock can be related because some of our ethnocentric beliefs cause us to have culture shock. If one is being exposed to a culture different than their own they could be ethnocentric in thinking this culture isn’t as good or is less than my own culture. One example of culture shock could be found in the video “Primates Like Us” where a group of student anthropologists went to study Balinese culture and primates.

As an Asian-Hawaiian child growing up in Hawaii, I was brought up with a lifestyle that mixed traditions from Hawaii and the Orient. Looking back into my childhood, I noticed that a lot of customs from my Japanese culture were more prominent in the mixture of conventions I was taught to practice in life. Celebrating holidays like “Hina Matsuri”(Girl’s Day), wearing traditional Japanese clothing like “Kimono”, and not being able to wear my slippers or shoes in the house, or else I would risk getting two left hooks to my ribs from grandma, are just some of the aspects of tradition that were incorporated into my life. Today, these customs are deeply rooted and have contributed

6.     Ethnocentrism – belief that ones own culture is superior to other’s: judge other’s by your own standards

A concept that has helped me to understand the social world is ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is defined as the attitude that one 's own culture is the best and others are inferior. On the micro level, it is now clear to me that I have demonstrated ethnocentrism in my dealings with individuals and this might account for some of the problems that have come about in individual friendships. On the macro level, ethnocentrism has helped me to understand why world peace is so elusive.

Ethnocentrism emphasizes the assumption that ones culture is above anyone else's (Engberg,77). The text outlines that an ethnocentric may believe that others should follow their culture, thus those people would live a happier life, and others culture are less developed than their own. A real world example of ethnocentrism may be found when a Bay Area born teenager visits an amish town on the East Coast. The teen would be initially shocked of the orthodox way of living compared to the innovative and modern culture he lives in the Bay Area.

The world has millions of people of diverse cultural backgrounds. They have their own beliefs, food habits, art forms, and dressing styles. Since ancient times, these people are coming across each other and are exchanging their ideas. However, sometimes people turn hostile because of their cultural prejudices. This tendency to judge the other people based on the standards of his or her own culture is cultural bias. It is a major hindrance in performing a cross-cultural research. A person who is culturally biased ignores the differences that exist between his own culture and other cultures. Cultural bias can stereotype a culture. When a person says his cultures superior to others, he is undoubtedly culturally biased. Such a person never appreciates

One must also beware of ethnocentrism, or a belief in the superiority of one 's own culture. Individuals who are ethnocentric frequently demonstrate disregard for other cultures.