What is the difference between ethnocentrism and stereotyping

If you read and write Arabic or Hebrew, you will proceed from right to left. Neither is right or wrong, simply different. You may find it hard to drive on the other side of the road while visiting England, but for people in the United Kingdom, it is normal and natural. A good example of ethnocentrism is referring to parts of Asia as the "Far East. However, ethnocentrism shows up in small and seemingly unconscious ways as well. In American culture, if you decided to serve dog meat as appetizers at your cocktail party you would probably disgust your guests and the police might even arrest you because the consumption of dog meat is not culturally acceptable.

In the Czech Republic, the traditional Christmas dinner is carp and potato salad. Imagine how your family might react if you told them you were serving carp and potato salad for Christmas. In the Czech Republic, it is a beautiful tradition, but in America, it might not receive a warm welcome.

Our cultural background influences every aspect of our lives from the food we consume to the classroom. Ethnocentrism is likely to show up in Literature classes as well. More often than not, these works represent the given culture i. In this case, ethnocentrism can be difficult to identify, as it just seems "normal. The map below is similar to the map of the world introduced to me in school. I never questioned why Asia was cut in half and my country was in the middle of the map. The arguments reveal cultural biases toward the Northern, industrialized nations.

The Mercator projection creates increasing distortions of size as you move away from the equator. As you get closer to the poles the distortion becomes severe. Greenland is 0. Because the Mercator distorts size so much at the poles it is common to crop Antarctica off the map. This practice results in the Northern Hemisphere appearing much larger than it really is. This was convenient, psychologically and practically, through the eras of colonial domination when most of the world powers were European.

It suited them to maintain an image of the world with Europe at the center and looking much larger than it really was.

Was this conscious or deliberate? Probably not, as most European map users probably never realized the Ethnocentric bias inherent in their world view.

Notably, this version comes closer to showing that what we perceive as land mass in the "South" is nearly twice as big as the "North" — The Mercator, however, makes the North look much larger.

Therefore, Peters argued, the Mercator projection shows a euro-centric bias and harms the world's perception of developing countries. But ethnocentrism can lead to disdain or dislike for other cultures and could cause misunderstanding and conflict.

European colonizers often viewed the people in the lands they colonized as uncultured savages who were in need of European governance, dress, religion, and other cultural practices. A more modern example of cultural imperialism may include the work of international aid agencies who introduce agricultural methods and plant species from developed countries while overlooking indigenous varieties and agricultural approaches that are better suited to the particular region.

To dismantle ethnocentrism, we must recognize that our views of the world, what we consider right and wrong, normal or weird, are largely influenced by our cultural standpoint, and that our cultural standpoint is not everyone's cultural standpoint.

Just as ethnocentrism is rooted in our perception of the world around us, so too are stereotypes. In fact, stereotypes are activated out of the perception process. Register as new user. Forgot my password. Email : Password : Register as new user Forgot my password. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. The first approach focuses on the relatively stable personality differences. It further goes on to define as well as explain social stratification itself, the caste, the class and the colour-bar systems respectively.

The essay further talks about the advantages and disadvantages of these systems of social stratification and how they affect development. Lastly but not the least comes the conclusion of the essay. According to Res , diversity can be represented as a variety of human aspects pertaining to different societies and cultures in the workforce or can be explained tolerating the differences. On the contrary, diversity is a quest of differences among human beings in safe, positive and nurturing surroundings and moves beyond simple tolerance.

The participants in the criminal justice system such as police, judges, lawyers and corrections officers may be part of a dominant group and use their ethnocentrism to create bias and discrimination based on cultural differences. There is the overt bias and prejudice that an urban area with large black and minority populations is crime ridden.

This in turn is cause for over policing with arrests of blacks. Just support me no matter what. Adults are more egocentric Ethnocentrism — Or sociocentrism.

My society, my ethnic background, etc.