Which concept involves judging other cultures by using the standards of the observer's own culture?

• A. Ethnocentrism
• B. Cultural Relativism
• C. Xenocentrism
• D. Beliefs

Answer: (A)

Judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture is ethnocentrism. This happens when people use their own customs, values, and norms as the universal benchmark and view other ways of life as inferior or wrong because they don’t fit that benchmark. It blocks understanding because it treats cultural difference as a threat or error rather than as a valid variation.

Cultural relativism, by contrast, asks us to interpret beliefs and practices within their own cultural context, without imposing our own standards. Xenocentrism is the opposite bias, valuing other cultures as superior to one’s own. Beliefs is too broad a term to capture the evaluative stance described.