The sociobiology of ethnocentrism in an Indian City

In this article, I examine whether inter- and/or intraunit variation in ethnocentrism— a trait not automatically connected with mortality/natality rates—can be correlated with differential reproductive success. As a preliminary test of general theoretical models in the literature regarding the sociobiology of ethnocentrism, it was postulated that the more ethnocentric an ethnic unit is, the more important ethnocentrism is for the members of that unit. With the use of this postulate, hypotheses were generated and tested with empirical data obtained through field research among two ethnic units—Tamils and Gujaratis—in the city of Pune, India. It was concluded that: 1) if interunit aggression and kin selection were predominant characteristics of the early hominid environments of evolutionary adaptation, then from a sociobiological perspective, ethnocentrism can be explained as an evolved human trait, intimately linked to kin selection and interunit warfare; and, 2) under what I assumed to be novel environmental conditions ethnocentrism and reproductive success appear to be uncorrelated; and, 3) because the possibility exists that novel environmental contengencies were acting to level off reproductive variance upon which natural selection could have operated in my sample, only future research in a society similar in structure to those we tend to identify with early hominid environments of evolutionary adaptation will allow researchers to rule out the possibility that ethnocentrism is an evolved human “biocultural” trait.