Why is ethnocentrism dangerous

Taking negative stereotypes and applying them in the world, such as being disrespectful or discriminatory towards someone from a different culture or of the culture as a whole. Acquiring information from just one's culture usually doesn't represent the entire population as a whole, therefore many times studies conducted in Western cultures don't accurately represent populations because of the ethnocentric bias confounding the study not taking into account a sample from one culture doesn't represent all people from every culture.

Assuming a leader that originates from a culture different than your own is not as strong as a leader that comes from your own culture. Being positively ethnocentric isn't a huge concern when considering the impacts ethnocentrism can have. For example, someone might assume all Asian people are extremely smart, because they've seen Asian peers do well in their classes in America, however this is still ethnocentrism although not a negative stereotype, still a stereotype because that person is making assumptions based on their own personal experiences and perceptions of Asian culture.

Although some positive judgments and opinions can surface from ethnocentrism, these judgments and opinions are not completely accurate because of the narrowed perspective.

Personal Example. Recently, in my mental health crisis work, I encountered a little bit of racism while I was attempting to help someone, and I was completely thrown off. Now this form of ethnocentrism is racism, because this woman was implying that because she was white, I wasn't helping her as much as I could have. This may seem strange and it totally was , because you don't hear this accusation made a lot from Caucasian people, many times people of color claim discrimination because there has been a long history of oppression against people of color, especially in America, and there are implicit forms of discrimination many people don't even recognize just because it's ingrained in the society.

I'm going to replace some details in the example I'm about to give to protect any confidentiality although the information if shared wouldn't reveal anything personal , but this is what she had said when I asked a standard demographic question, after I had already spoken with her about self-care, and provided her with resources for an aggressive family member:.

My question: "What race or ethnicity do you identify with? Her response: "What does that matter which in a sense is true , if I was Mexican would you have actually helped me? Such generalizations — often made without a conscious awareness that we've used our culture as a universal yardstick — can be way off base and cause us to misjudge other peoples. In the end, thinking ethnocentrically reduces another culture's way of life to a pale version of our own culture.

Ethnocentrism leads to cultural misinterpretation and distorts communication between human beings of different cultures. It doesn't occur to us that "they" may not be very good at the very thing we are best at. By evaluating "them" by what we are best at, we may miss those aspects of life that they handle more competently than we do.

We Americans often talk about British drivers driving "on the wrong side" of the road. Why not just say "opposite side" or even "left hand side"? We talk about written Hebrew as reading "backwards. I encouraged university students going on short-term missions trips to think or say the phrase "Oh, that's different" rather than using more negative and pejorative terms when encountering strange customs or foods.

The opposite of ethnocentrism is xenocentrism. Xenocentrism means preferring ideas and things from other cultures over ideas and things from your own culture. Parents can become divided over how they decide to discipline their children. It is the philosophies of ethnocentrism rearing its ugly head. This belief system requires us to close off our minds to different perspectives and opinions. We can no longer choose to believe anything but our own thoughts or ideas because no one else to be correct.

That is why societies self-destruct over time — because no one is willing to listen to what anyone else has to say. Life becomes more about what is said in the echo chamber instead of outside of it. Ethnocentrism drives people away from what they love. If the only thing that a person experiences is rejection in life, then there is no desire to be around people who think of them as being inferior.

This attitude drives a wedge between groups where those who are in the minority feel like the only option available to them sometimes is to leave. Communities in the United States are becoming more like minded than ever before because of this very reason. Whenever the approach of ethnocentrism is taken, it creates a circumstance where individuals or groups provide ultimatums to each other.

There is no middle ground when taking the ethnocentric approach. Because the only relationships which form from these ultimatums are the ones which share specific belief systems, people are moving further away from diversity. In time, this will cause humanity to become weaker. It is a philosophy which limits the human perspective. Have you ever seen someone resist change even though the new policies or procedures they were being asked to follow would make your life easier?

That is another example of ethnocentrism at work. The act of dismissing any thought of evolution or change at the micro or macro levels is evidence of an ethnocentric perspective.

The people who are enforcing change can be just as ethnocentric in their philosophies as those who are resisting it. The issue here is that the superiority of belief found on both sides of the aisle limits the ability to implement best practices in our personal or professional lives. Ethnocentrism can have deadly results.

Are you the type of person who gets angry when someone has a disagreement on an opinion that you have shared? The problem that ethnocentrism ultimately brings to humanity is its nature of escalation.

People become blinded by their personal perspectives to the extent where it becomes the correct choice for them to enforce their philosophies on other people at any expense. When you see an act of terrorism, either domestic or foreign, then you are witnessing an act of ethnocentrism.

If you see someone committing an act of violence against another person, then this is also ethnocentrism. Although people in the minority will sometimes rise up against these actions to commit violence themselves, a retaliatory response would not occur in society if the impression from ethnocentric views was not present in the first place.

This philosophy can create isolation. As Psychology Today notes, humans are hardwired to interact with other people. We seek out social connections whenever we go through a stressful incident in life. The 6 aspects of culture — According to Sturt, there are 6 aspects of culture that people look for in a great place to work: purpose, opportunity, success, appreciation, well-being, and leadership.

The following are the 25 large companies with the best company culture in Employee quotes are from Comparably. You can read the full lists at Comparably here…. You can read the full lists at Comparably here. While many of the top 10 countries were in Europe, including Italy, Spain, France and the UK, the list also included Japan ranking high for being modern and prestigious , Brazil for its happy populace and entertainment , and the United States for being modern and culturally influential.

In late March, the United Nations published the World Happiness Report, a comprehensive look at what makes the most contented countries work so well. For the seventh year in a row, the Nordic nations of Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden dominated the top ten.

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Why is ethnocentrism dangerous? Ben Davis May 31, Why is ethnocentrism dangerous?