Ethnocentrism and its effect on interethnic relationships in Iran A secondary analysis

Ethnocentrism is a kind of cultural belief, according to which an indivivalues, norms and life style of his/her own ethnic group superior to the other ones. Eethnocentrism is based on some stereotypes and in multiethnic societies, it hinders the development of interethnic social relationships. In this paper a secondary analysis of available data about eight Iranian ethnic groups of Azari, Kord, Lor, Arab, Fars, Balooch, Torkman and Talesh is done and the results indicate that ethnocentric attitude is high among all of the mentioned groups. The lowest and highest rates of ethnocentrism can be attributed to Arabs and Balooch ethnic groups respectively. Considering the effect of ethnocentrism on interethnic relations, our findings show that ethnocentrism weakens intensity, quantity and generality of communal, cultural and political interethnic relationships and increases conflict interethnic relationships. In addition ethnocentrism is an impediment to the formation of collective identity among the investigated ethnic groups.