Ethnocentrism is a term introduced by William Graham Sumner to describe the feeling that one’s own culture is superior to others. According to Sumner, ethnocentrism means seeing your own group as the center of everything and judging other cultures based on your own. This mindset makes people exaggerate the differences in their customs compared to others. For example, eastern countries may feel their culture is better than the culture of western countries, or some may still think Africa is just a land of primitive tribes. Ethnocentrism often leads to seeing other cultures as “wrong” instead of just different, and it can sometimes result in xenophobia, the fear of foreign things.
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