Friday, December 11, 2009

Another measure showing high Jewish ethnocentrism



















Comments by The Undiscovered Jew (TUJ) in the last post motivated me to look at two items. He stressed that no one seems to back up claims of Jewish ethnocentrism with peer-reviewed research. Looking at the Academic Search Complete database that has 11,200 journals, I did a search on "Jews" and "ethnocentrism" and failed to find even a single relevant article. The closest I could find was a 1976 article studying the integration attitudes of liberal Jews and WASPs working for some civil rights organization in Los Angeles. Worthless. I did find an article based on GSS data examining the ethnocentrism of gentiles.  There are no relevant studies because people are terrified of this kind of topic. The only articles conducted are on anti-Semitism.

TUJ's other point is that I'm basing my conclusion on only one analysis. I've provided evidence before that Jews rank high on ethnocentrism among American ethnic groups here, here, and here.

Let's use the ETHCLOSE variable that TUJ uses in the comments. Respondents are asked how close they feel to their ethnic or racial group, with answers ranging from "very close" (1) to "not close at all" (4). I reverse-coded the values so that a high number indicates high ethnocentrism. The means are shown above for all groups with at least 30 respondents. (The exception to this was to include different types of Jews as TUJ did in his analysis).

Orthodox and Conservative Jews are the most ethnocentric of all groups. The only groups more ethnocentric than all Jews combined are blacks and Norwegians. Even Mex-Ams scored lower.  I should say, however, that all Jews together were not quite significantly higher than Americans of English/Welsh descent at the two-tailed 95 percent confidence level. The Jewish/English gap is one-third of a standard deviation.

On the other hand, TUJ has a point that tribalism varies greatly across types of Jews. While Orthodox Jews are one full standard deviation more ethocentric than Americans of English/Welsh descent, Jews with no religious affiliation actually score a bit lower than the reference group. (Keep in mind that the N's are tiny).

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:12 AM

    According to "conservative" Debbie Schlussel "anti-Semitic filmmaking is alive and well in Hollywood and Britain."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:21 AM

    Anonymous said...
    According to "conservative" Debbie Schlussel "anti-Semitic filmmaking is alive and well in Hollywood and Britain."

    What Debbie Schlussel neglects to mention is that the film An Education is based on the autobiographical memoir of the journalist Lynn Barber. Maybe Peter Sarsgaard's character is portrayed as Jewish because the person he is based on actually was a Jew.

    B.B.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:52 AM

    I have a feeling that feeling "close" to one's ethnicity may signify something different for Norwegians than it does for Jews. How many Norwegian Americans have spied for Norway?

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Undiscovered Jew8:04 AM

    On the other hand, TUJ has a point that tribalism varies greatly across types of Jews.

    I know that Orthodox Jews marry other Orthodox at a rate in excess of 90%.

    I don't know what the outmarriage rate for Conservative, Reform and non-affiliated Jews is but I would bet it follows the same pattern - ie, non-affiliated Jews have the highest outmarriage rate.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Undiscovered Jew12:13 PM

    TRTMYRAC : PROPORTION OF SAME RACE AS R AMONG PPL R TRUST - 1112. Are the people that you trust: 1. Almost all the same race as you 2. Mostly the same race as you 3. About evenly divided between the same race as you and other races 4. Mostly a different race than you 5. Almost all a different race than you

    (warning N=10 for Jews for this variable)

    RACE
    1
    WHITE

    1: Almost all the same race as you 44.4

    2: Mostly the same race as you 35.0

    3: About evenly divided 18.5

    4: Mostly a different race than you 1.3

    5: Almost all a different race than you .8


    RELIG
    3
    JEWISH

    1: Almost all the same race as you 19.0

    2: Mostly the same race as you 46.5
    3: About evenly divided 30.3

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Undiscovered Jew12:24 PM

    How about using altruism towars strangers as a proxy for ethnocentrism?

    GIVSEAT R OFFERED SEAT TO A STRANGER DURING PAST 12 MONTHS

    RACE
    1
    WHITE

    1: More than once a week 1.0

    2: Once a week 1.7

    3: Once a month 5.8

    4: At least 2 or 3 times in the past year 23.5

    5: Once in the past year 14.6

    6: Not at all in the past year 53.5


    RELIG
    3
    JEWISH (N=40)

    1: More than once a week 0.0

    2: Once a week 8.4

    3: Once a month 7.6

    4: At least 2 or 3 times in the past year 37.1

    5: Once in the past year 3.7

    6: Not at all in the past year 43.2

    ReplyDelete
  7. Relatedly, I showed that Jews were at the bottom of the list among those donating blood.

    http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2007/09/religion-and-donating-blood-some.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous6:27 PM

    When Jews say they're not ethnocentric, they mean that they don't give a shit about white gentiles.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Halvorson8:22 PM

    Haha, the Norwegian data point is just too funny. I'd always known that Norwegians were unusually....prideful (There are still some old geezers in western Minnesota who fly Norwegian flags alongside American ones), but not to that extent. My explanation for the heightened ethnocentrism is that most Norwegians emigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th century, when the independence (from Sweden) movement was just beginning to blossom. That and the fact that Norwegians were usually the earliest settlers in rural Minnesota and North Dakota and thus developed a kind of snobby attitude toward the later arriving Germans and the rest.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Non-Jewish whites who are ethnocentric are objects of mockery-e.g. the Guidos or the character in the Sopranos who was an Italian-American activist. Aside from ethnic Italians, ethnocentric NJW's have no media- or even much real life-presence.

    From Paul Gottfried's recent memoir, Encounters:
    ...my own painfully accumulated impressions of the apparently forgotten ethnicity of my students.Ethnic and denominational differences do not exist for them, at least on the surface. It is considered downright gauche to mention such differences, except when dwelling on the suffering of blacks or other authorized victim groups or the bigotry of whites, particularly those who bear the stigma of residing in the American South.
    (...)

    I think we all recognize the accuracy of Gottfried's description of the sociological terrain of contemporary America.

    So, regardless of what secret thoughts people harbor, Jews are operationally almost infinitely more ethnocentric than other whites.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Beltram Riddick10:15 AM

    "Relatedly, I showed that Jews were at the bottom of the list among those donating blood." This argument is ad hominem. Also maybe the reason people don't do research in this vein is not because they are terrified. It is because the research is scientifically meaningless. It's like trying to use intelligent design to cure cancer. The only possible possible use for much of the research on your blogs would be proving claims of scientific racism, or furthering the aims of the white power movement. I'm not meaning to assume too much, but maybe you are implying that certain groups should cease to be? Painting yourself as someone who is asking "hard" questions seems to be your way of excusing your desire to be a demagogue.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I simply describe reality and TUJ objects. Notice that I didn't blame the Jews for anything. And it should be obvious that non-Jewish whites have no ethnic lobbies in the same league as the ADL or AIPAC.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh yeah, and anyone who watches The Sopranos or Goodfellas and comes away with an admiration for the Mafia is seriously sick in the head.

    ReplyDelete
  14. diana8:15 PM

    I've become more ethnocentric as I've grown older.

    1. I find a lot of non-Jews stupid. Honestly, if you want to find a smart, data-oriented person, look for a Jew, and 50% of the time you won't be disappointed.

    2. Anti-semitic jerks like the commenters here are not uncommon.

    ReplyDelete

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