Bias is a disproportionate weightin favor of oragainst an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate,closed-minded,prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, or a belief.[1] In science and engineering, a bias is asystematic error.Statistical bias results from an unfairsampling of a population, or from anestimation process that does not give accurate results on average.[2]
The word appears toderive fromOld Provençal intoOld Frenchbiais, "sideways, askance, against the grain". Whence comesFrenchbiais, "a slant, a slope, an oblique".[3]
It seems to have enteredEnglish via the game ofbowls, where it referred to balls made with a greater weight on one side. Then, it expanded to the figurative use, "a one-sided tendency of the mind", and, at first especially in law, "undue propensity or prejudice".[3] orballast, used to lower the centre of gravity of a ship to increase stability and to keep the ship from one side.[4]
A cognitive bias is a repeating or basic misstep in thinking, assessing, recollecting, or other cognitive processes.[5] That is, a pattern of deviation from standards in judgment, whereby inferences may be created unreasonably.[6] People create their own "subjectivesocial reality" from their own perceptions,[7] their view of the world may dictate their behaviour.[8] Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly calledirrationality.[9][10][11] However some cognitive biases are taken to beadaptive, and thus may lead to success in the appropriate situation.[12] Furthermore, cognitive biases as an example through education may allow faster choice selection when speedier outcomes for a task are more valuable than precision.[13] Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations,[14] coming about because of anabsence of appropriate mental mechanisms, or just from human limitations ininformation processing.[15]
Anchoring is apsychological heuristic that describes the propensity to rely on the first piece ofinformation encountered whenmaking decisions.[16][17][18] According to thisheuristic, individuals begin with an implicitly suggested reference point (the "anchor") and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate.[2] For example, the initial price offered for aused car sets the standard for the rest of thenegotiations, so thatprices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is worth.[19][20]
Apophenia, also known as patternicity,[21][22] or agenticity,[23] is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns withinrandom data. Apophenia is well documented as arationalization for gambling. Gamblers may imagine that they see patterns in the numbers which appear inlotteries,card games, orroulette wheels.[24] One manifestation of this is known as the "gambler's fallacy".
Pareidolia is the visual or auditory form of apophenia. It has been suggested that pareidolia combined withhierophany may have helped ancient societies organize chaos and make the world intelligible.[25][26]
An attribution bias can happen when individuals assess or attempt to discover explanations behind their own and others' behaviors.[27][28][29] People makeattributions about the causes of their own and others' behaviors; but these attributions do not necessarily precisely reflect reality. Rather than operating as objective perceivers, individuals are inclined to perceptual slips that prompt biased understandings of their social world.[30][31] When judging others we tend to assume their actions are the result of internal factors such aspersonality, whereas we tend to assume our own actions arise because of the necessity of external circumstances. There are a wide range ofsorts of attribution biases, such as theultimate attribution error,fundamental attribution error,actor-observer bias, andself-serving bias.
Examples of attribution bias:[32]
Confirmation bias is the tendency tosearch for,interpret, favor, andrecall information in a way that confirms one'sbeliefs orhypotheses while giving disproportionately less attention to information that contradicts it.[34] The effect is stronger foremotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explainattitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence),belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) andillusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). Confirmation biases contribute tooverconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poordecisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts.[35][36]
Framing involves thesocial construction ofsocial phenomena bymass media sources,political or social movements,political leaders, and so on. It is an influence over how people organize, perceive, and communicate aboutreality.[37] It can be positive or negative, depending on the audience and what kind of information is being presented. For political purposes, framing often presents facts in such a way that implicates a problem that is in need of a solution. Members of political parties attempt to frame issues in a way that makes a solution favoring their own political leaning appear as the most appropriate course of action for the situation at hand.[38] As understood insocial theory, framing is aschema ofinterpretation, a collection ofanecdotes andstereotypes, that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events.[39] People use filters to make sense of the world, the choices they then make are influenced by their creation of a frame.
Cultural bias is the related phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. Numerous such biases exist, concerning cultural norms for color, location of body parts,mate selection, concepts ofjustice,linguistic andlogical validity, acceptability ofevidence, andtaboos. Ordinary people may tend to imagine other people as basically the same, not significantly more or less valuable, probably attached emotionally to different groups and different land.
The halo effect and the horn effect are when anobserver's overall impression of a person,organization,brand, orproduct influences their feelings about specifics of that entity's character or properties.[40][41][42]
The name halo effect is based on the concept of thesaint's halo, and is a specific type ofconfirmation bias, wherein positive sentiments in one area cause questionable or unknown characteristics to be seen positively. If the observer likes one aspect of something, they will have a positive predisposition toward everything about it.[43][44][45][46] A person'sappearance has been found to produce a halo effect.[47] The halo effect is also present in the field ofbrand marketing, affecting perception ofcompanies andnon-governmental organizations (NGOs).[48][49][50][51][52][53][54]
The opposite of the halo is the horn effect, when "individuals believe (that negative) traits are inter-connected."[55] The term horn effect refers toDevil's horns.[citation needed] It works in a negative direction: if the observer dislikes one aspect of something, they will have a negative predisposition towards other aspects.[56]
Self-serving bias is the tendency forcognitive orperceptual processes to bedistorted by the individual's need to maintain and enhanceself-esteem.[57] It is the propensity to credit accomplishment to our own capacities and endeavors, yet attribute failure to outside factors,[58] to dismiss the legitimacy of negative criticism, concentrate on positive qualities and accomplishments yet disregard flaws and failures. Studies have demonstrated that this bias can affectbehavior in theworkplace,[59] ininterpersonal relationships,[60] playingsports,[61] and inconsumer decisions.[62]
Status quo bias is anemotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs. The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss.Status quo bias should be distinguished from a rational preference for thestatus quo ante, as when the current state of affairs is objectively superior to the available alternatives, or when imperfect information is a significant problem. A large body of evidence, however, shows that status quo bias frequently affects human decision-making.[63]
A conflict of interest is when aperson orassociation has intersecting interests (financial,personal, etc.) which could potentially corrupt. The potential conflict is autonomous of actualimproper actions, it can be found and intentionally defused beforecorruption, or the appearance of corruption, happens. "A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."[64] It exists if the circumstances are sensibly accepted to present a hazard that choices made may be unduly affected by auxiliary interests.[65]
A conflict of interest arises when a decision-maker participates in a corrupt act that seeks to influence the outcome in favor of a specific individual, organization, or entity in a decision-making process.[66] For example, attempts to solicit abribe orkickback in exchange for favoring a party creates a conflict of interest.[67] A perceived conflict of interest may also arise in an individual who is offered such a payment, even if it is declined, particularly in situations where the attempt to bribe is not reported.[68]
Laws restricting whether a monetary transaction is appropriate can differ between jurisdictions based upon their criminal laws. For example, some nations criminalize the receipt of politicalcampaign contributions in the form of cash, while other nations permit cash donations provided that donors otherwise adhere to election law.[citation needed]
Favoritism, sometimes known as in-group favoritism, or in-group bias, refers to a pattern of favoring members of one'sin-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways.[69][70] This has been researched bypsychologists, especiallysocial psychologists, and linked togroup conflict andprejudice.Cronyism is favoritism of long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications.[71]Nepotism is favoritism granted torelatives.[72][73][74][75]
Lobbying is the attempt to influence choices made byadministrators, frequentlylawmakers or individuals fromadministrative agencies.[76][77][78] Lobbyists may be among a legislator'sconstituencies, or not; they may engage in lobbying as abusiness, or not. Lobbying is often spoken of withcontempt, the implication is that people with inordinatesocioeconomic power arecorrupting thelaw in order to serve their own interests. When people who have aduty to act on behalf of others, such as elected officials with a duty to serve their constituents' interests or more broadly thecommon good, stand to benefit by shaping the law to serve the interests of some private parties, there is a conflict of interest. This can lead to all sides in a debate looking to sway the issue by means of lobbyists.
Self-regulation is the process whereby an organization monitors its own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a third party entity monitor and enforce those standards.[79] Self-regulation of any group can create a conflict of interest. If any organization, such as a corporation or government bureaucracy, is asked to eliminate unethical behavior within their own group, it may be in their interest in the short run to eliminate the appearance of unethical behavior, rather than the behavior itself.
Regulatory capture is a form ofpolitical corruption that can occur when aregulatory agency, created to act in thepublic interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of specialinterest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.[80][81] Regulatory capture occurs because groups or individuals with a high-stakes interest in the outcome of policy or regulatory decisions can be expected to focus their resources and energies in attempting to gain the policy outcomes they prefer, while members of the public, each with only a tiny individual stake in the outcome, will ignore it altogether.[82] Regulatory capture is a risk to which a regulatory agency is exposed by its very nature.[83][84]
Shilling is deliberately giving spectators the feeling that one is an energetic autonomousclient of avendor for whom one is working. The effectiveness of shilling relies oncrowd psychology to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shilling is illegal in some places, but legal in others.[85] An example of shilling ispaid reviews that give the impression of being autonomous opinions.
Statistical bias is a systematic tendency in the process of data collection, which results in lopsided, misleading results. This can occur in any of a number of ways, in the way the sample is selected, or in the way data are collected.[86] It is a property of astatistical technique or of its results whereby theexpected value of the results differs from the true underlying quantitativeparameter beingestimated.
A forecast bias is when there are consistent differences between results and the forecasts of those quantities; that is: forecasts may have an overall tendency to be too high or too low.
The observer-expectancy effect is when aresearcher's expectations cause them to subconsciously influence the people participating in an experiment. It is usuallycontrolled using adouble-blind system, and was an important reason for the development of double-blind experiments.
Inepidemiology andempirical research, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" of undesirable behavior by subjects[87] or researchers.[88][89]It refers to a tendency to under-report unexpected or undesirable experimental results, while being more trusting of expected or desirable results. This can propagate, as each instance reinforces the status quo, and later experimenters justify their own reporting bias by observing that previous experimenters reported different results.
Social desirability bias is a bias withinsocial science research wheresurvey respondents can tend to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed positively by others.[90] It can take the form of over-reporting laudable behavior, or under-reporting undesirable behavior. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences. The inclination represents a major issue withself-report questionnaires; of special concern are self-reports of abilities,personalities,sexual behavior, anddrug use.[90]
Selection bias is the conscious or unconscious bias introduced into a study by the way individuals, groups or data are selected for analysis, if such a way means that true randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed.[91] This results in a sample that may be significantly different from the overall population.
Bias and prejudice are usually considered to be closely related.[92] Prejudice is prejudgment, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because ofgender, political opinion,social class,age,disability,religion,sexuality,race/ethnicity,language,nationality, or other personal characteristics. Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs[93] and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".[94]
Ageism is the stereotyping and/or discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. It can be used in reference to prejudicial attitudes towards older people, or towards younger people.
Classism isdiscrimination on the basis ofsocial class. It includes attitudes that benefit theupper class at the expense of thelower class, or vice versa.[95]
Lookism isstereotypes,prejudice, anddiscrimination on the basis ofphysical attractiveness, or more generally to people whose appearance matches cultural preferences.[96][97][98] Many people make automatic judgments of others based on their physical appearance that influence how they respond to those people.[99][100]
Racism consists of ideologies based on a desire to dominate or a belief in the inferiority of another race.[101][102] It may also hold that members of different races should be treated differently.[103][104][105]
Academic bias is the bias or perceived bias ofscholars allowing theirbeliefs to shape theirresearch and thescientific community. Claims of bias are often linked to claims by conservatives of pervasive bias against political conservatives and religious Christians.[116] Some have argued that these claims are based uponanecdotal evidence which would not reliably indicate systematic bias,[117][118][119] and have suggested that this divide is due toself-selection of conservatives choosing not to pursue academic careers.[117][120]There is some evidence that perception of classroom bias may be rooted in issues ofsexuality,race,class andsex as much or more than inreligion.[121][122]
Inscience research, experimenter bias occurs when experimenter expectancies regardingstudy results bias the research outcome.[123] Examples of experimenter bias include conscious orunconscious influences on subject behavior including creation ofdemand characteristics that influence subjects, and altered orselective recording of experimental results themselves.[124] It can also involve asking leading probes and not neutrally redirecting the subject back to the task when they ask for validation or questions.[125]
Funding bias refers to the tendency of a scientific study to support the interests of the study's financial sponsor. This phenomenon is recognized sufficiently that researchers undertake studies to examine bias in past published studies.[126] It can be caused by any or all of: a conscious or subconscioussense of obligation of researchers towards their employers,[127]misconduct ormalpractice,[128]publication bias,[128][129][130][131] orreporting bias.[132]
Full text on net (or FUTON) bias is a tendency ofscholars to citeacademic journals withopen access—that is, journals that make their full text available on theinternet without charge—in their own writing as compared withtoll access publications. Scholars can more easily discover and access articles that have their full text on the internet, which increases authors' likelihood of reading, quoting, and citing these articles, this may increase theimpact factor of open access journals relative to journals without open access.[133][134][135][136][137][138]
The related bias, no abstract available bias (NAA bias) is scholars' tendency to cite journal articles that have anabstract available online more readily than articles that do not.[133][138]
Publication bias is a type of bias with regard to what academicresearch is likely to be published because of a tendency among researchers and journal editors to prefer some outcomes rather than others (e.g., results showing asignificant finding), which leads to a problematic bias in the published literature.[139] This can propagate further asliterature reviews of claims about support for ahypothesis will themselves be biased if the original literature is contaminated by publication bias.[140]Studies with significant results often do not appear to be superior to studies with anull result with respect to quality ofdesign.[141] However, statistically significant results have been shown to be three times more likely to be published compared to papers with null results.[142]
Driving while black refers to theracial profiling ofAfrican American drivers. The phrase implies that a motorist might be pulled over by apolice officer, questioned, and searched, because of aracial bias.[143][144]
Racial profiling, or ethnic profiling, is the act of suspecting or targeting a person of a certainrace on the basis of racially observed characteristics or behavior, rather than on individual suspicion.[145][146] Racial profiling is commonly referred to regarding its use bylaw enforcement, and its leading to discrimination againstminorities.
Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a wrongful act is held at fault for the harm that befell them.[147] The study ofvictimology seeks to mitigate the perception of victims as responsible.[148]
Media bias is the bias or perceived bias ofjournalists andnews producers within themass media in the selection of events, the stories that are reported, and how they are covered. The term generally implies a pervasive or widespread bias violatingthe standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article.[149] The level of media bias in different nations is debated. There are alsowatchdog groups that report on media bias.
Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative,government influence including overt and covertcensorship,[150] the influence of the owners of the news source,concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intendedaudience, and pressure fromadvertisers.
Bias has been a feature of the mass media since its birth with the invention of theprinting press. The expense of early printing equipment restricted media production to a limited number of people. Historians have found that publishers often served the interests of powerful social groups.[151]
Agenda setting describes the capacity of the media to focus on particular stories, if a news item is covered frequently and prominently, the audience will regard the issue as more important. That is, itssalience will increase.[152]
Gatekeeping is the way in which information and news are filtered to the public, by each person or corporation along the way. It is the "process of culling and crafting countless bits of information into the limited number of messages that reach people every day, and it is the center of the media's role in modern public life. [...] This process determines not only which information is selected, but also what the content and nature of the messages, such as news, will be."[153]
Sensationalism is when events and topics in news stories and pieces are overhyped to present skewed impressions of events, which may cause a misrepresentation of the truth of a story.[154] Sensationalism may involve reporting about insignificant matters and events, or the presentation ofnewsworthy topics in a trivial ortabloid manner contrary to the standards ofprofessional journalism.[155][156]
Bias in education refers to real or perceived bias in the educational system. The content of school textbooks is often the issue of debate, as their target audience is young people, and the term "whitewashing" is used to refer to selective removal of critical or damaging evidence or comment.[157][158][159] Religious bias in textbooks is observed in countries where religion plays a dominant role. There can be many forms of educational bias. Some overlooked aspects, occurring especially with the pedagogical circles of public and private schools—sources that are unrelated to fiduciary or mercantile impoverishment which may be unduly magnified—include teacher bias as well as a general bias against women who are going into STEM research.[160][161]
Inductive bias occurs within the field ofmachine learning. In machine learning one seeks to developalgorithms that are able tolearn to anticipate a particular output. To accomplish this, the learning algorithm is given training cases that show the expected connection. Then the learner is tested with new examples. Without further assumptions, this problem cannot be solved exactly as unknown situations may not be predictable.[162][163] The inductive bias of the learning algorithm is the set of assumptions that the learner uses to predict outputs given inputs that it has not encountered.[162] It may bias the learner towards the correct solution, the incorrect, or be correct some of the time. A classical example of an inductive bias isOccam's Razor, which assumes that the simplest consistent hypothesis is the best.
Insider trading is the trading of apublic company'sstock or othersecurities (such asbonds orstock options) by individuals with access tonon-public information about the company. Invarious countries, trading based on insider information is illegal because it is seen as unfair to other investors who do not have access to the information as the investor with insider information could potentially make far larger profits that a typical investor could make.
In organizedsports, match fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law.[164] There is a variety of reasons for this, but the most common is in exchange for a payoff from gamblers. Players might also intentionally perform poorly to get an advantage in the future (such as a betterdraft pick, or an easier opponent in aplayoff), or to rig ahandicap system. Match-fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match-fixing, known asspot-fixing, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which are unlikely to prove decisive in determining the final result of the game.
Animplicit bias, orimplicit stereotype, is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group.[165]
Implicit stereotypes are shaped by experience and based on learned associations between particular qualities and social categories, including race and/or gender. Individuals' perceptions and behaviors can be influenced by the implicit stereotypes they hold, even if they are unaware/unintentionally hold such stereotypes. Implicit bias is an aspect of implicitsocial cognition: the phenomenon that perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes operate without conscious intention. For example, researchers may have implicit bias when designing survey questions and as a result, the questions do not produce accurate results or fail to encourage survey participation.[125] The existence of implicit bias is supported by a variety of scientific articles in psychological literature. Implicit stereotype was first defined by psychologistsMahzarin Banaji andAnthony Greenwald in 1995.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior:
racism: Belief that humans are subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as superior or inferior.
[I]n the more accurate and more specific sense [...] 'sexism' refers to a historically and globally pervasive form of oppression against women.
Sexism usually refers to prejudice or discrimination based on sex or gender, especially against women and girls.
Sexism in a society is most commonly applied against women and girls. It functions to maintain patriarchy, or male domination, through ideological and material practices of individuals, collectives, and institutions that oppress women and girls on the basis of sex or gender.
Either sex may be the object of sexist attitudes [...] however, it is commonly held that, in developed societies, women have been the usual victims.
Sexism is any act, attitude, or institutional configuration that systematically subordinates or devalues women. Built upon the belief that men and women are constitutionally different, sexism takes these differences as indications that men are inherently superior to women, which then is used to justify the nearly universal dominance of men in social and familial relationships, as well as politics, religion, language, law, and economics.[page needed]
[B]oth men and women can experience sexism, but sexism against women is more pervasive[page needed]
[T]he key test of whether something is sexist [...] lies in its consequences: if it supports male privilege, then it is by definition sexist. I specify 'male privilege' because in every known society where gender inequality exists, males are privileged over females.[page needed]
Although we speak ofgender inequality, it is usually women who are disadvantaged relative to similarly situated men.[Emphasis in original]
Sexism, or prejudice toward one sex (almost always women), has existed throughout recorded history.
Gender or Sex Discrimination: This term refers to the types of gender bias that have a negative impact. The term has legal, as well as theoretical and psychological, definitions. Psychological consequences can be more readily inferred from the latter, but both definitions are of significance. Theoretically, gender discrimination has been described as (1) the unequal rewards that men and women receive in the workplace or academic environment because of their gender or sex difference (DiThomaso, 1989); (2) a process occurring in work or educational settings in which an individual is overtly or covertly limited access to an opportunity or a resource because of a sex or is given the opportunity or the resource reluctantly and may face harassment for picking it (Roeske & Pleck, 1983); or (3) both.[page needed]
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