Interethnic conflict: Attribution and cultural ignorance

This paper analyzes an interethnic conflict according to (a) literature on conflict and interethnic interactions; (b) the context in which the conflict occurred; and (c) interpretations of participants provided in follow‐up interviews. Participants adhered to Afrocentric and Eurocentric norms of interaction (Hecht, Collier, & Ribeau, 1993; Kochman, 1981). Eurocentric responses reflected Kochman's description of European American's low tolerance for strong emotions and embodied the norms presented in the mainstream literature on conflict. The author argues that being rational and showing strong emotions are not mutually exclusive. Rather than polar opposites on a single scale, they are separate axes that intersect. Participants claimed that neither gender nor race had played a role in the conflict, but analyses of the conflict illustrate that cultural differences, both behavioral and interpretive, do explain the conflict. Failure to recognize cultural differences led to a negative evaluation of an individual. This evaluation was compounded by the certainty on the part of the European Americans that their interpretation was the correct one, a notion supported by the Eurocentric literature on conflict that fails to adequately describe whose cultural modes it analyzes as normative.

Key terms:

• Interethnic conflict
• African American
• European American
• cultural norms/styles of interaction
• attribution