Ethnocentrism

The level of cultural diversity that seems to exist amongst human societies means that it is important to avoid the trap of ethnocentrism when trying to understand the nature and scope of human cultures.

Ethnocentric attitudes are not uncommon but, sociologically, we need to move away from thinking that there are universal cultural standards that somehow point to fundamental truths about "human nature".

Sociology is not about making moral judgments (disguised as some kind of "objective truth"), about the worth or people's lifestyles. 

Rather, it is about the attempt to understand and analyse the reasons for the development of cultural diversity. For this reason it is perhaps more useful to adopt the idea of cultural relativity in this context.