Systemic bias, also called institutional bias, and related to structural bias, is the inherent tendency of a process to support particular outcomes. The term generally refers to human systems such as institutions. Institutional bias and structural bias can lead to institutional racism, and can also be used interchangeably. Institutional racism is a type of racism that is integrated into the laws, norms, and regulations of a society or establishment. Structural bias, in turn, has been defined more specifically in reference to racial inequities as "the normalized and legitimized range of policies, practices, and attitudes that routinely produce cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for minority populations". The issues of systemic bias are dealt with extensively in the field of industrial organization economics. Systemic bias plays a part in

systemic racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...

, a form of racism embedded as a normal practice within society or an organization. It is not to be confused with the equivalent bias in non-human systems, such as measurement instruments or mathematical models used to estimate physical quantities, often called systematic bias.

In human institutions

Cognitive bias A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...

is inherent in the experiences, loyalties, and relationships of people in their daily lives, and new biases are constantly being discovered and addressed on both an ethical and political level. For example, the goal of affirmative action in the United States is to counter biases concerning gender, race, and

ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

, by opening up institutional participation to people with a wider range of backgrounds, and hence a wider range of points of view. In India, the system of scheduled castes and tribes intends to address systemic bias caused by the controversial

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

system, a system centered on organized

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

based upon one's ancestry, not unlike the system that affirmative action aims to counter. Both the scheduling system and affirmative action mandate the hiring of citizens from within designated groups. However, without sufficient restrictions based upon the actual socio-economic standing of the recipients of the aid provided, these types of systems can allegedly result in the unintentional institutionalization of a reversed form of the same systemic bias, which works against the goal of rendering institutional participation open to people with a wider range of backgrounds. Unconscious bias training has become common in many organizations, which may address both systemic and structural bias. Structural bias may be inherent in the practices and policies of the organization, such as hiring practices that favor social networking, or a grooming policy that disadvantages people with Afro-textured hair.

Major causes

The study of systemic bias as part of the field titled

organizational behavior Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself".Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995) ...

in industrial organization economics is studied in several principle modalities in both non-profit and for-profit institutions. The issue of concern is that patterns of behavior may develop within large institutions which become harmful to the productivity and viability of the larger institutions from which they develop, as well as the community they occupy. The three major categories of study for maladaptive organizational behavior and systemic bias are counterproductive work behavior, human resource mistreatment, and the amelioration of stress-inducing behavior.

Racism

Racism is prejudice, discrimination or hostility towards other people because they are of a different racial or ethnic origin. Medical students conducted studies to investigate systemic biases associated with race. The result of the study showed that due to systemic bias, certain groups of people are marginalized due to race and differences, their professional careers are threatened, and more homework/responsibility is given to those in the minority group.

Counterproductive work behavior

Counterproductive work behavior, or CWB, consists of behavior by employees that harms or intends to harm organizations and people in organizations.

Mistreatment of human resources

There are several types of mistreatment that employees endure in organizations.

Abusive supervision

Abusive supervision is the extent to which a

supervisor A supervisor, or lead, (also known as foreman, boss, overseer, facilitator, monitor, area coordinator, line-manager or sometimes gaffer) is the job title of a lower-level management position that is primarily based on authority over workers or ...

engages in a pattern of behavior that harms subordinates.

Bullying

Although definitions of

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imba ...

vary, it involves a repeated pattern of harmful behaviors directed towards an individual.

Incivility

Incivility Incivility is a general term for social behaviour lacking in civility or good manners, on a scale from rudeness or lack of respect for elders, to vandalism and hooliganism, through public drunkenness and threatening behaviour. The word "incivilit ...

consists of low-intensity discourteous and rude behavior with ambiguous intent to harm that violates norms for appropriate behavior in the workplace.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...

is behavior that denigrates or mistreats an individual due to his or her gender, creates an offensive workplace, and interferes with an individual being able to do their job.

Stress

Occupational stress Occupational stress is psychological stress related to one's job. Occupational stress refers to a chronic condition. Occupational stress can be managed by understanding what the stressful conditions at work are and taking steps to remediate those ...

concerns the imbalance between the demands (aspects of the job that require mental or physical effort) and resources that help cope with these demands.

Examples

Financial Week Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of finan ...

'' reported 5 May 2008 (''emphasis added''):

Versus systematic bias

In engineering and computational mechanics, the word ''bias'' is sometimes used as a synonym of

systematic error Observational error (or measurement error) is the difference between a measured value of a quantity and its true value.Dodge, Y. (2003) ''The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms'', OUP. In statistics, an error is not necessarily a " mistak ...

. In this case, the bias is referred to the result of a measurement or computation, rather than to the measurement instrument or computational method. Some authors try to draw a distinction between systemic and systematic corresponding to that between unplanned and planned, or to that between arising from the characteristics of a system and from an individual flaw. In a less formal sense, ''systemic'' biases are sometimes said to arise from the nature of the interworkings of the system, whereas ''systematic'' biases stem from a concerted effort to favor certain outcomes. Consider the difference between affirmative action (systematic) compared to racism and caste (systemic).