THE EVOLUTION OF ETHNOCENTRISM

The article - based on the latest results - reconstruct the main steps of evolution ethnocentrism. It identifies the most important stages of the development of ethnocentrism within the societies. In the past years - besides analyzing the other-regarding behavior - more and more experiments were carried out to examine definitely the effect of ethnocentric behavior, and the formation of this kind of behavior during the socialization. The article argues that it is useful to differentiate between the stages of emergence of ethnocentrism. Analyzing the complex phenomena of ethnocentric behavior one can separate as distinct stages the emergence of the ethnocentric psychological attitude, than stereotyping and prejudices, and finally the emergence of complex ethnocentric ideology, as a social institution.