Attitudes 11invited to a party by a friend of a friend. As she enters the hotel
where the party is being held, she begins to have some feelings
of trepidation (xenophobic feelings— strange place). But as she
enters the ballroom she sees a laughing, animated group of
people, dressed as she is, speaking in a very familiar accent. She
immediately feels at ease and begins an evening of fun and
enjoyment with some of the best people she has ever met. During
the course of the evening she notices in an adjacent ballroom a
group of people playing unfamiliar music, speaking in a strange
accent. As the party progresses she hears loud noises and
screams from the next ballroom. If her reaction is, “Why can’t
they act the way we do?— in a civilized manner,” that’s ethno-
centrism. That ethnocentric thought would cause her to be very
embarrassed when she finds out the hotel is on fire and that’s the
reason for the noise in the next room, and that the people in the
next room were there to honor Mother Theresa.
Attitudes—we learn them from the home, culture, school,
peer groups, and media. Ethnocentrism and xenophobia can
result from misreading some very natural feelings. Now we
know where attitudes come from, and although the emphasis has
been on the negative effects of the sources, these sources can and
do enrich us by providing diverse, new, exciting and interesting
contrasts which can be the basis for understanding.