Is Ethnocentrism Good?
Is it Innate?

Baby watches puppets at the Yale Cognition labEthnocentrism boosts social solidarity. Under the social conditions of the distant past, it may have helped both individuals and social groups to survive.

Some of the evidence suggests that very young children have strong preferences for those with whom they share meaningless traits.

Next: Ethnocentrism can clearly be bad

research at the Yale Infant Cognition lab shows that babies prefer those who share meaningless traits similar to themselves (in this case choosing Cheerios over graham crackers) and seem to want those do not share those meaningless traits to be treated badly.