Bias
Bias is a disproportionate weight in favor of or against 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. In science and engineering, a bias is a systematic error. Statistical bias results from an unfair sampling of a population, or from an estimation process that does not give accurate results on average.
Etymology
The word appears to derive from Old Provençal into Old French biais, "sideways, askance, against the grain". Whence comes French biais, "a slant, a slope, an oblique".It seems to have entered English via the game of bowls, 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". or ballast, used to lower the centre of gravity of a ship to increase stability and to keep the ship from one side.
Types
Cognitive biases
A cognitive bias is a repeating or basic misstep in thinking, assessing, recollecting, or other cognitive processes. That is, a pattern of deviation from standards in judgment, whereby inferences may be created unreasonably. People create their own "subjective social reality" from their own perceptions, their view of the world may dictate their behaviour. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. However some cognitive biases are taken to be adaptive, and thus may lead to success in the appropriate situation. Furthermore, cognitive biases as an example through education may allow faster choice selection when speedier outcomes for a task are more valuable than precision. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, coming about because of an absence of appropriate mental mechanisms, or just from human limitations in information processing.Anchoring
Anchoring is a psychological heuristic that describes the propensity to rely on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions. According to this heuristic, individuals begin with an implicitly suggested reference point and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate. For example, the initial price offered for a used car sets the standard for the rest of the negotiations, so that prices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is worth.Apophenia
Apophenia, also known as patternicity, or agenticity, is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data. Apophenia is well documented as a rationalization for gambling. Gamblers may imagine that they see patterns in the numbers which appear in lotteries, card games, or roulette wheels. 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 with hierophany may have helped ancient societies organize chaos and make the world intelligible.
Attribution bias
An attribution bias could happen when individuals assess or attempt to discover explanations behind their own and others' behaviors. People make attributions 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. When judging others we tend to assume their actions are the result of internal factors such as personality, whereas we tend to assume our own actions arise because of the necessity of external circumstances. There are a wide range of sorts of attribution biases, such as the ultimate attribution error, fundamental attribution error, actor-observer bias, and self-serving bias.Examples of attribution bias:
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses while giving disproportionately less attention to information that contradicts it. The effect is stronger for emotionally 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 explain attitude polarization, belief perseverance, the irrational primacy effect and illusory correlation. Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts.Framing
Framing involves the social construction of social phenomena by mass media sources, political or social movements, political leaders, and so on. It is an influence over how people organize, perceive, and communicate about reality. 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. As understood in social theory, framing is a schema of interpretation, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes, that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. 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 of justice, linguistic and logical validity, acceptability of evidence, and taboos. 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.
Halo effect and horn effect
The halo effect and the horn effect are when an observer's overall impression of a person, organization, brand, or product influences their feelings about specifics of that entity's character or properties.The name halo effect is based on the concept of the saint's halo, and is a specific type of confirmation 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. A person's appearance has been found to produce a halo effect. The halo effect is also present in the field of brand marketing, affecting perception of companies and non-governmental organizations.
The opposite of the halo is the horn effect, when "individuals believe traits are inter-connected." The term horn effect refers to Devil's horns. It works in a negative direction: if the observer dislikes one aspect of something, they will have a negative predisposition towards other aspects.
Self-serving bias
Self-serving bias is the tendency for cognitive or perceptual processes to be distorted by the individual's need to maintain and enhance self-esteem. It is the propensity to credit accomplishment to our own capacities and endeavors, yet attribute failure to outside factors, 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 affect behavior in the workplace, in interpersonal relationships, playing sports, and in consumer decisions.Status quo bias
Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs. The current baseline 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 the status 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.
Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest is when a person or association has intersecting interests which could potentially corrupt. The potential conflict is autonomous of actual improper actions, it can be found and intentionally defused before corruption, 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." It exists if the circumstances are sensibly accepted to present a hazard that choices made may be unduly affected by auxiliary interests.Corruption
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. For example, attempts to solicit a bribe or kickback in exchange for favoring a party creates a conflict of interest. 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.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 political campaign contributions in the form of cash, while other nations permit cash donations provided that donors otherwise adhere to election law.