nativism
(ˈneɪtɪvɪz(ə)m)
[f. as prec. + -ism: in sense 2 perh. ad. F. nativisme.]
1. a. (Chiefly U.S.) Prejudice in favour of natives against strangers; the practice or policy of protecting the interests of the native residents against those of immigrants.
| 1845 Congress. Globe 18 Dec. 66 In the City of New York nativism had its origin in the disputes of the Tammany party. 1856 N. & Q. 2nd Ser. I. 9/2 In a kind of feud now existing between American-born and foreign-born citizens, the former are said to profess Nativism. 1864 Nicols 40 Years Amer. Life II. 90 These necessities destroyed nativism and the political Anti-Catholic party. 1890 S. J. Duncan Social Departure 230 Graphic fervour, wherein his nativism showed like the cloven foot. 1965 Guardian 6 Aug. 5/3 The revived nativism of white, rural, Protestant America. 1968 G. W. Stocking Race, Culture & Evolution xi. 297 This reaction was related to the national outburst of nativism which..was to lead finally in 1923 to the passage of legislation which closed the era of mass immigration by non-‘Nordics’. |
b. Anthrop. (See quot. 1972.)
| 1964 Gould & Kolb Dict. Social Sci. 458/1 Examples of nativism would include peyotism and cargo cults. Another example is the Ghost Dance of the American Indians. 1972 D. Davies Dict. Anthropol. 132/1 Nativism, the movement of societies back toward a reaffirmation of their native tribal cultures as a reaction when acculturation seems to be threatening their tribal identity and culture. |
2. a. Philos. The doctrine of innate ideas.
| 1887 Mind XII. 628 The Stoics{ddd}he holds, combined the truth that is in sensationalism with the truth that is in nativism. 1901 Chambers's Encycl. VIII. 476/1 The opposed views of Nativism and Empiricism. |
b. Psychol. and Linguistics. The doctrine that certain capacities or abilities, esp. those of sense perception, are innate rather than acquired; the theory that in the development of language an inherent connection exists in the mind between sound and sense.
| 1892 Monist II. 316 By Nativism, Marty understands the theory that certain involuntary articulate sounds are associated with certain ideas. 1924 R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind i. 1 And even to-day no agreement has been reached between the rival theories of empiricism and nativism, the first of which emphasizes the influence of environment, and the second the influence of heredity. 1968 D. Price-Williams in J. Clifton Introd. Cultural Anthropol. xii. 312/1 Visual illusions have given cross-cultural psychologists a considerable body of data with which to assess the factors of nativism and empiricism in perception. 1970 Language XLVI. 139 In the revival of Cartesian philosophical views of language, a number of other moribund doctrines have been brought to spectral life, too: mentalism, nativism (the innate-endowment component in child language studies). 1972 Encycl. Psychol. II. 308/1 Nativism, the belief that human behavior and particularly human perceptual mechanisms are inborn and determined by genetics, as opposed to the belief that they are the result of learning and experience. |