A country that is considered, ethnocentric can be defined as the following:

Original Theory of the Authoritarian Personality and the F Scale

It was in 1950 with the publication of a classic volume titled The Authoritarian Personality that these ideas finally became prominent in the social sciences. In this volume the authors (Adorno et al., 1950) theoretically elaborated a theory of the authoritarian personality and reported the results of a multipronged decade-long program of research testing the theory. Their investigation had begun with the objective of explaining the psychological bases of anti-Semitism. This was shown to be part of a much broader ethnocentric pattern involving a generalized dislike of out-groups and minorities, as well as an excessive and uncritical Nationalism. Anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism were also strongly related to political and economic conservatism. These attitudes and beliefs appeared to cluster together to form a coherent pattern, and this patterning seemed best explained as an expression of basic needs within the personality.

Evidence from a number of sources and particularly their own research comparing persons high and low in ethnocentrism on indices and ratings scored blind from interview data, and projective test protocols suggested that a constellation of nine tightly covarying traits characterized this authoritarian personality syndrome. Moreover, these traits seemed to be directly expressed in particular ‘implicitly antidemocratic,’ or authoritarian, attitudes and beliefs. This meant that it would be possible to identify authoritarian personalities by the degree to which people would agree with these ‘implicitly antidemocratic’ attitudes and beliefs. On this basis, Adorno et al. (1950) developed their famous F scale consisting of items expressing attitudes which were believed to be direct expressions of each of the nine ‘traits’ of the authoritarian personality syndrome. These nine ‘traits’ are listed below with their gist definitions in parentheses followed by an example in quotation marks:

Conventionalism (rigid adherence to conventional middle-class values): “A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people.”

Authoritarian submission (a submissive, uncritical attitude toward authorities): “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.”

Authoritarian aggression (tendency to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values): “Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals, and ought to be severely punished.”

• Anti-intraception (opposition to the subjective, imaginative, and tender-minded): “Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private.”

Superstition and stereotypy (belief in mystical determinants of the individual's fate, disposition to think in rigid categories): “Some day it will probably be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things.”

Power and toughness (preoccupation with the dominance–submission, strong–weak, leader–follower dimension; identification with power, strength, toughness): “People can be divided into two distinct classes, the weak and the strong.”

Destructiveness and cynicism (generalized hostility, vilification of the human): “Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict.”

Projectivity (disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outward of unconscious emotional impulses): “Most people do not realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places.”

Sex (an exaggerated concern with sexual ‘goings-on’): “The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the ‘goings-on’ in these regions, even in places where people might least expect it.”

Adorno et al.'s (1950) theoretical explanation for the origin of this authoritarian personality drew heavily on psychodynamic theory. It suggested that overstrict, harsh, and punitive parental socialization sets up an enduring conflict within the individual. In this conflict, parental punitiveness engenders resentment and hostility toward parental authority and by extension all authority, but cannot be expressed because of fear of and dependence on the all-powerful parents. The anger and hostility are therefore repressed and replaced by an uncritical idealization of the parents and conventional authority and submission to them. The repressed anger and hostility toward authority does not disappear but is displaced and directed toward substitute targets, notably those seen as being sanctioned by conventional authority, such as vulnerable and culturally deviant out-groups and minorities. These inner impulses and conflicts are then directly expressed in the nine surface trait components of the authoritarian personality and those implicit antidemocratic beliefs sampled by the F scale.

Initially, this theory inspired a great deal of enthusiasm. It seemed to effectively tie together concepts over an extremely broad range – from individual psychodynamics to sociological phenomena of immense significance for human society and history. In the two decades following the publication of their book, the F scale was used in hundreds of studies as a measure of an authoritarian personality dimension. These studies confirmed that scores on the F scale were strongly correlated to right-wing attitudes, political conservatism, nationalism, and generalized prejudice against out-groups and minorities (see, e.g., the review by Brown, 1965).

Culture or Ontology?

The author has already suggested that contemporary interpretations of magic are entangled in a paradox: in trying to combat the ethnocentrism that portrays magic as an irrational practice, they end up, unwittingly and unwillingly no doubt, being ethnocentric themselves. It may be the case that magic ritualizes hope and optimism, that witchcraft makes accidents meaningful, that sex avoidance expresses social conflicts, that the devil symbolizes the nature of capitalism, and so on but this is not how the people involved in these beliefs and practices understand them. As far as they are concerned, magic before a fishing expedition in the open sea ensures safety and a good catch, witchcraft is a force in the body of the witch that flies at night and attacks its unsuspecting victims, contact with menstrual blood causes serious harm, and the devil is a malevolent supernatural force. If anthropological interpretations are valid, the inescapable conclusion is that natives suffer from a ‘cultural unconscious’ (Argyrou, 2002). They may not be irrational but they are certainly ignorant of the true meaning of their magical beliefs and practices.

It is problems such as these that seem to be behind a recent call to replace the notion of culture with that of ontology (e.g., Viveiros de Castro, 2003; Holbraad, 2010). The problem with cultural analysis, according to the argument, is that it posits one reality that is open to different representations – one nature, many cultures. This is a problem because in this schema only one representation can be valid – usually the Western representation. An ontological perspective, by contrast, posits multiple realities, which means that other ways of life can no longer be treated as misrepresentations of reality. They are realities in their own right and if anthropologists are to understand them, they need to expand their conceptual horizons.

Can this theorization of other ways of life save the day? Without further elaboration of the thesis, it is too early to tell. One question, however, may be raised: does this thesis not posit a reality (of multiple ontologies) that the natives are once again not aware of?

Two Dominant Approaches to Interethnic Conflict

There are two dominant approaches to studying interethnic conflict: primordialism and instrumentalism (Che, 2016; Bayar, 2009). Primordialists suggest the ubiquity of ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's ethnic in-group is superior and that ethnic out-groups are inferior. It also suggests the appropriateness of judging the world from the perspective of one's own ethnic group. Primordialists argue that the aggression of in-groups toward out-groups is rooted in a primordial urge linking group identity with specific ascriptive characteristics, often ethnicity and/or race. Thus, ethnic identity, in this view, emerges naturally. Primordialists assume that in-group relationships are more peaceful, orderly, and supportive, while out-group relationships are conflictual, anarchic, and destructive. Primordialists insist that ethnic similarity leads to cooperation and ethnic difference leads to interethnic conflict. Few theorists grant wholesale acceptance to primordial arguments except for sociobiologists following social Darwinist tenets.

Instrumentalists posit that interethnic conflict does not emerge from any “natural” division of groups into nations but is the result of elite manipulation of communal appeals to pursue their own interests. Instrumentalists conclude that cultural difference does not necessitate conflict (Che, 2016). Furthermore, Che (2016) argues, it only makes it easier for elites to move their societies closer to hostility and rivalry. In this case, instrumentalists insist that ethnicity is malleable and its boundaries and content are subject to change. Instrumentalists emphasize the instances of positive orientation toward out-groups prevalent throughout social intercourse.

Further, in-groups and out-groups are often subgroups within larger social organizations, and social integration can encompass previously separated groups. For instrumentalists, ethnicity does not emerge naturally but is a result of socialization under elite and communal pressures and orientations into the lifeways of one's dominant community (Che, 2016). Banton (2000) relates the socialization process inculcates common language, religion, customs, dress, food, etc. Still, it also instills a sense of group fidelity and affinity while simultaneously inculcating a sense of out-group enmity. However, instrumentalists remind us that while powerful, these processes are neither uniform, singular, nor irreversible. Groups into which persons are socialized are not always the ones they would like to belong to, feel loyal, or adopt their standards. People have multiple, often crisscrossing identities, and travel and intergroup communication often make these crisscrossing identities more salient than the singular ones that may have resulted from socialization. In fact, individuals are often socialized into multilingual, cosmopolitan, and quite gregarious groups toward ethnically dissimilar neighbors.

Therefore, instrumentalists maintain that primordialists adopt a myopic view of socialization and then promote this unique instance—which should only be considered a particular case—as representative of a general tendency. To be sure, socialization is an important mechanism for transferring ethnic amity toward in-groups and enmity toward out-groups; however, instrumentalists maintain—socialization is complex, malleable, and much less invariant than primordialists insist.

Not only do instrumentalists emphasize more excellent prospects for intergroup cooperation and multiculturalism, but, eschewing the notion of the inherent tendency of in-group/out-group conflict, they implicitly suggest the dominant role of elite manipulation of cultural difference as a causal factor in interethnic conflict. Che (2016) also suggests that, at the extreme, some instrumentalists suggest that ethnicities are “constructed” (see Chandra, 2012). Such assessments are only partially correct; for example, a perceived Chinese threat to Bugis, Javanese, and Minangkabau helped fuse those identities into ethnic Malay. While their brethren fight on the subcontinent as rival Hindu and Muslim, in South Africa and Uganda, such groups identified primarily as Indians. Nonetheless, the boundary between Malay and Chinese is not imagined, nor is the boundary among Acholi, Buganda, and Indian. While ethnic leaders may exploit perceived differences to promote their interests unless they respond to actual grievances and aspirations, their movements flounder. Efforts to “construct” ethnic identities without a cultural basis are often unsuccessful, as evidenced in the failure to promote the “Occitanian” identity in southern France in the 1960s or the effort to create a “Pandanian” identity among northern Italians in the 1990s.

In sum, primordialists suggest a natural division of humanity into ethnic families that are prone to conflict. At the same time, instrumentalists focus on the social construction of ethnicity and elite manipulation of cultural differences as essential factors in the interethnic conflict. Early systematic research on the role of cultural similarity in conflict suggests a relationship between the distribution of ethnic groups and a state's level of internal conflict. The findings indicated that ethnically diverse states are at risk for interethnic conflict. On the other hand, states in which ethnic groups are relatively equally distributed are at the highest risk for interethnic conflict, and ethnically homogeneous states are the least likely to experience interethnic conflict. On the interstate level, the findings have been less persuasive. Early research found, at best, weak relationships between cultural similarity and interstate conflict. Scholars suggested that ethnic similarity is often associated with conflict since ethnically similar groups often live close to each other with more opportunities to interact. Recent scholarship has begun to challenge these earlier findings with results that demonstrate that cultural variables are significant predictors of interstate conflict.

What are 5 examples of ethnocentrism?

What is an example of being ethnocentric?

What is being ethnocentric?

Who are considered ethnocentric people?