Ethnocentrism And The Surrounding Biases Ethnocentrism: Judging
others from your own societal viewpoint without taking their
culture into account. There are many dimensions to this and many
biases that influence it. Anthropologists often immerse
themselves in a distant culture in order to get a better feeling
of the beliefs, views, and ideas present in a society. They
attempt to get an emic (inside) view of the society.
Unfortunately however, many of these anthropologists, approach
the culture with an ethnocentric viewpoint. What is
ethnocentrism? Ethnocentrism is when someone judges others from
their own viewpoint without taking their culture into account.
The opposite of enthrocentrism is relativism, when you feel that
someone believes what they believe because they learned it as
such. There are four types of biases which are present in
ethnocentrism: Subjective bias- When experiences of the
observer, or their point of view, influence their outlook on a
culture. Evaluative bias- When the observer judges wha