Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism Theory

Scholars like Sumner initially argued that the tendency toward ethnocentrism developed in an environment of scarce resources. Individuals formed groups—tribes, races, nations—whose members cooperated to find these limited resources and competed with other groups for survival. Thus, simple physical need motivated trust of in-group and distrust of out-group members. Social identity theory revised this structuralist and functionalist explanation, arguing that the mere act of individuals classifying themselves as members of the same group automatically results in a display of in-group favoritism. The very ordinary desire for [Page 466]self-esteem prompts individuals to positively differentiate their in-group in comparison with an out-group on the basis of the particular parameter they select, such as race, language, or religion. Other scholars have argued that ethnocentrism, as an extension of kinship sentiments, is a genetically selected propensity because it is biologically advantageous.

Research has also shown that ethnocentrism is a general affective-cognitive system. Thus, people who hold prejudices against one disadvantaged group tend to hold prejudices against other disadvantaged groups as well, even though these out-groups have nothing in common except their disadvantaged status.

Ethnocentrism in the United States

Ethnocentrism has played a part in U.S. history since the country's founding. The success of the U.S. Revolution reinforced the idea—originating with the Puritan settlers—that Providence had selected America to be an example to the rest of the world. The leaders of the U.S. Revolution saw themselves as creating a morally superior nation—one that would end Old World systems of monarchy and feudalism, and introduce universal freedom and civilization around the world.

Internally, the presence of so many African Americans in positions of abject slavery encouraged 19th-century White U.S. residents to be receptive to so-called scientific theories of polygenesis and innate racial hierarchies. Even those who favored emancipation rejected the notion of incorporating Blacks into mainstream White society. By the 1850s, the myth of the superior Anglo-Saxon American race was firmly entrenched.

Native Americans provided another test of this idea. The initial national policy toward Native Americans was to attempt to “civilize” them, encouraging them to take up farming and private property. But as westward expansion across the continent under the popular idea of Manifest Destiny resulted in increasingly brutal wars with the Native Americans who were being displaced from their traditional lands, the Enlightenment notions of the equality of man fell by the wayside. By 1830, it was generally accepted that American Indians were racially inferior to the Anglo-Saxon Americans and therefore did not need to be treated as equals.

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