Ethnocentrism And Racism

Nationalism allows individual living in a defined state to a have superior complex mentality when looking at other countries. In other words, nationalism influences individuals to have an ethnocentric perspective when observing other state’s cultures. In the United States and all over the world symbols like flags, holidays, and songs, like the national anthem, foster feelings of a national identity (Alhethail). These individuals take pride in these events and glorify it to an extent where they develop an ethnocentric mindset, where every other state’s culture becomes a laughing stock and are presumed as inferior (William Sumner). Ethnocentrism, also known as tribalism, is looked down in western countries as many of them believe such attitudes

A group paradigm experiment found that participants who showed prejudice against members of an outgroup showed higher self-esteem than those who did not ( Lemyre, et al. qtd. in Pedersen, 151). Another experiment examined the relationships between racism and self-esteem with white undergraduate students. The experiment found that people with high self-esteem were more prejudiced(Utsey, et al. qtd. in Pederson, 151). It is important to note that although the relationship was statistically significant, both of the experiment sample size was very small. Both of these experiment show that a group or an individual self-esteem is promoted in the process of making another individual feels inferior. Henri Tajfel, a social psychologist, and pioneer of the social identity theory explained that this happens because if an individual can view their groups in a favorable comparison in reference to another group then their self-esteem will be further enhanced(. The mentality that in order to be great the other group must be minimized can be simply be summarized as war. World War I started after the assassination Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914 (“Franz Ferdinand”). This deeply offended Austria’s nationalism. They decided to retaliate by waging war Serbia who they branded as the attacker. This created a chain reaction where major states became involved. The number of militaries and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million (World War I casualties, 1). The start of World War I was because each individual within a group believed that they were superior. The Austrians believed that their country was the greatest that existed at the time. The death of their leader dented their pride in which nationalism created and as result, they retaliated and created the most horrific war in all of history (David P.