Since its introduction into the social sciences by Gumplowicz in the 1870s, ethnocentrism has been a fundamental concept that has captured the attention of many social scientists, including sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, economists, and political scientists. The first measure of ethnocentrism was developed in the late 1940s as part of the authoritarian personality research programme by Adorno and colleagues. Despite the popularity of ethnocentrism, its study has been impeded by a diversity of conceptualisations and measures.
In recent years, many political scientists and psychologists have undertaken studies into ethnocentrism and developed new conceptualisations and measures. This presentation focuses on comparing two contemporary conceptualisations and measures. Both have been used extensively by political scientists and psychologists. The first approach comes from political science, influenced by Kinder and Kam’s work, which emphasises preferential emotional warmth and stereotypes towards one’s own ethnic ingroup over societal ethnic outgroups.
The second approach, coming from psychology, is influenced by my colleagues’ and my work on the new Ethnocentrism Scale. This measure sees ethnocentrism as a complex, hierarchical multidimensional construct, which exists at three levels: 1) overall ethnocentrism, 2) intragroup and intergroup ethnocentrism, and 3) dimensions of devotion, group cohesion, preference, superiority, purity, and exploitativeness. Although both measures have certain strengths and weaknesses, research shows that our measure demonstrates stronger psychometric properties and predicts external validity criteria over and above Kinder and Kam’s measure.
Additionally, our conceptualisation and resulting measure align more closely with the original definitions of ethnocentrism proposed by both Gumplowicz and Sumner. Finally, our recent research indicates that our measure has important implications for understanding and measuring nationalism. Further implications of the findings for the study of sociopolitical phenomena will be discussed.

Boris Bizumic is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University. His research interests are within personality, social, political, and cross-cultural psychology, with a particular focus on psychological assessment and scale development. Although his principal research interest is in ethnocentrism, he has also made significant contributions to other areas, including the study of sociopolitical constructs, such as right-wing authoritarianism and prejudice, and aversive personality constructs, such as narcissism and Machiavellianism. He has over 80 publications, comprising books (including Ethnocentrism: Intergroup Perspectives, 2019), book chapters, and journal articles. Currently, he serves as an editor at the Journal of Personality Assessment and is on the editorial boards of four other journals, including Political Psychology and the Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Boris is a past president of the Australasian Congress for Personality and Individual Differences, and he currently teaches personality psychology at the Australian National University.