Do you believe that there are personality traits specific to ethnicities ?

My friend jokes about her "Irish temper", I’ve heard about "Latin tempers" or "passion" and the French being "romantic".
Where do the stereotypes come from and is there anything to them other than hype ? 🤔

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DrWatson · 70-79, M

By coincidence, here is something a friend of mine sent me in a chat the other day:

Yes, I'm half Italian and
we've traced my grandparents
roots to northern Italy. I've always
identified more with my maternal
Italian side, in looks, general affinity.
My brother always identified more
with our paternal, German side in
looks, personality. A few years ago,
we did Ancestry, and it turns out
he has way more German DNA
and I have way more Italian DNA!
Weird, isn't it?

Underconstruction · F

@DrWatson Italian is a nationality, not an ethnicity.

bijouxbroussard · F

@Underconstruction Perhaps it’s both ?
Per Cambridge Dictionary:

Ethnicity is a noun that refers to a large group of people who have the same national, racial, or cultural origins, or the state of belonging to such a group.

Underconstruction · F

@bijouxbroussard No , dear, if you have ever been to Italy it´s pretty obvious to notice not all italians look alike. They also come from different ethnicities. People simply want to throw them into one category, same for Germans , same for Spaniards and in fact same for most people all over the world. This is mostly an American obsession with anything race related.

bijouxbroussard · F

@Underconstruction If someone is born and raised in the United States, their nationality would be American (okay, North American) but if their family and roots are from Italy, (for example) wouldn’t their ethnicity be Italian (ie, Italian-American) ?

Underconstruction · F

@bijouxbroussard No, that´s not how it goes. Again you insist in throwing a whole country´s population into the same bag as if they didn´t have individual qualities. So in your mind, Peruvians are all the same, no differences allowed in order to suit a stereotype, same goes for Norwegians, Venezuelans and Dutch ? That´s pretty narrow minded if you ask me.

bijouxbroussard · F

@Underconstruction Whatever. I’m not looking for an argument but it seems like you are. If you don’t like this post, there are plenty of others. Maybe as you say, it is an "American" thing, at the risk of

throwing a whole country´s population into the same bag

🤔

Underconstruction · F

@bijouxbroussard Since when is this an argument ? I don´t agree with your ideas. You can think whatever you want but I don´t have to play along.

bijouxbroussard · F

@Underconstruction I guess when you began by "dear-ing" me but I tried to keep it civil. You’re right, you don’t have to do a thing. No argument there.

But understand that you’re stating an opinion that not everyone shares.

Underconstruction · F

@bijouxbroussard Likewise