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 Observational error (or measurement error) is the difference between a measurement, measured value of a physical quantity, quantity and its unknown true value.Dodge, Y. (2003) ''The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms'', OUP. Such errors are ...

. 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 Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th French ''biais'', "a slant, a slope, an oblique". It seems to have entered English via the game of bowls">English (language)">English via the game of bowls, where it referred to balls made with a greater weight on one side. Which 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 Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...

encountered when making decisions. According to this heuristic, individuals begin with an implicitly suggested reference point (the "anchor") 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 A lottery (or lotto) is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find som ...

, 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 can happen when individuals assess or attempt to discover explanations behind their own and others' behaviors.Heider, F. (1958). "The psychology of interpersonal relations", New York: Wiley, 322 p.Kelley, H.H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine (Ed.) ''Nebraska Symposium on Motivation'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 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.Nisbett, R.E. & Ross, L. (1980). ''Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment'', Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. When judging others we tend to assume their actions are the result of internal factors such as

personality Personality is any person's collection of interrelated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional patterns that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life. These interrelated patterns are relatively stable, but can change over long time per ...

, 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

belief A belief is a subjective Attitude (psychology), attitude that something is truth, true or a State of affairs (philosophy), state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some Life stance, stance, take, or opinion ...

s or

hypotheses A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific method, scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educ ...

while giving disproportionately less attention to information that contradicts it. The effect is stronger for

emotion Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavior, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is ...

ally 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 (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) and

illusory correlation In psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such ...

(when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). 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 Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...

sources, political or social movements, political leaders, and so on. It is an influence over how people organize, perceive, and communicate about

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...

. 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 Schema may refer to: Science and technology * SCHEMA (bioinformatics), an algorithm used in protein engineering * Schema (genetic algorithms), a set of programs or bit strings that have some genotypic similarity * Schema.org, a web markup vocab ...

of interpretation, a collection of anecdotes and

stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

s, that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events.Goffman, E. (1974). ''Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 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 In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

al validity, acceptability of

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what J ...

, 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 An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

, 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 A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether natural, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specifi ...

and

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

s (NGOs). The opposite of the halo is the horn effect, when "individuals believe (that negative) 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 Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of Individual, individuals, organisms, systems or Artificial intelligence, artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or or ...

in the workplace, in

interpersonal relationships In social psychology, an interpersonal relation (or interpersonal relationship) describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more people. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which ar ...

, playing

sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

s, 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 (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 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 A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...

or association has intersecting interests ( financial, personal, etc.) which could potentially corrupt. The potential conflict is autonomous of actual improper actions, it can be found and intentionally defused before

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

, 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 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.

Favoritism

Favoritism, sometimes known as in-group favoritism, or in-group bias, refers to a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways.Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. (2010). ''Social psychology''. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. This has been researched by

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

s, especially social psychologists, and linked to group conflict and

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

. Cronyism is favoritism of long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives."Nepotism."
Dictionary.com. Retrieved 20 June 2013.

Lobbying

Lobbying is the attempt to influence choices made by administrators, frequently lawmakers or individuals from administrative agencies. Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituencies, or not; they may engage in lobbying as a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

, or not. Lobbying is often spoken of with contempt, the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law in order to serve their own interests. When people who have a duty to act on behalf of others, such as elected officials with a duty to serve their constituents' interests or more broadly the

common good In philosophy, Common good (economics), economics, and political science, the common good (also commonwealth, common weal, general welfare, or public benefit) is either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, o ...

, 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.

Regulatory issues

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. 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 of

political corruption Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influen ...

that can occur when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. 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.Timothy B. Lee
"Entangling the Web"
''The New York Times'' (August 3, 2006). Retrieved April 1, 2011 Regulatory capture is a risk to which a regulatory agency is exposed by its very nature.

Shilling

Shilling is deliberately giving spectators the feeling that one is an energetic autonomous client of a vendor for whom one is working. The effectiveness of shilling relies on

crowd psychology Crowd psychology (or mob psychology) is a subfield of social psychology which examines how the psychology of a group of people differs from the psychology of any one person within the group. The study of crowd psychology looks into the actions ...

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. An example of shilling is paid reviews that give the impression of being autonomous opinions.

Statistical biases

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. It is a property of a

statistical Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

technique or of its results whereby the

expected value In probability theory, the expected value (also called expectation, expectancy, expectation operator, mathematical expectation, mean, expectation value, or first Moment (mathematics), moment) is a generalization of the weighted average. Informa ...

of the results differs from the true underlying quantitative

parameter A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...

being estimated.

Forecast bias

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.

Observer-expectancy effect

The observer-expectancy effect is when a researcher's expectations cause them to subconsciously influence the people participating in an experiment. It is usually controlled using a double-blind system, and was an important reason for the development of double-blind experiments.

Reporting bias and social desirability bias

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

and empirical research, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" of undesirable behavior by subjects or researchers. 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 within social science research where survey respondents can tend to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed positively by others. 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 with self-report questionnaires; of special concern are self-reports of abilities, personalities, sexual behavior, and drug use.

Selection bias

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. This results in a sample that may be significantly different from the overall population.

Prejudices

Bias and prejudice are usually considered to be closely related."bias ...; prejudice", The New Merriam–Webster Dictionary, 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 of

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

, political opinion, social class, age,

disability Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, d ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

, sexuality, race/

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

, nationality, or other personal characteristics. Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".

Ageism

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

Classism is discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes attitudes that benefit the upper class at the expense of the lower class, or vice versa.

Lookism

Lookism is

, and discrimination on the basis of physical attractiveness, or more generally to people whose appearance matches cultural preferences. Many people make automatic judgments of others based on their physical appearance that influence how they respond to those people.

Racism

Racism consists of ideologies based on a desire to dominate or a belief in the inferiority of another race. It may also hold that members of different races should be treated differently."Racism" in R. Schefer. 2008 Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society. SAGE. p. 1113

Sexism

Contextual biases

Biases in academia

Academic bias

Academic bias is the bias or perceived bias of scholars allowing their

s to shape their

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

and the scientific community. Claims of bias are often linked to claims by conservatives of pervasive bias against political conservatives and religious Christians. Some have argued that these claims are based upon anecdotal evidence which would not reliably indicate systematic bias, and have suggested that this divide is due to self-selection of conservatives choosing not to pursue academic careers. There is some evidence that perception of classroom bias may be rooted in issues of sexuality, race, class and sex as much or more than in

Experimenter bias

In science research, experimenter bias occurs when experimenter expectancies regarding study results bias the research outcome. Examples of experimenter bias include conscious or unconscious influences on subject behavior including creation of demand characteristics that influence subjects, and altered or selective recording of experimental results themselves. It can also involve asking leading probes and not neutrally redirecting the subject back to the task when they ask for validation or questions.

Funding bias

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. It can be caused by any or all of: a conscious or subconscious sense of obligation of researchers towards their employers, misconduct or malpractice, publication bias, or reporting bias.

Full text on net bias

Full text on net (or FUTON) bias is a tendency of scholars to cite

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

s with

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

—that is, journals that make their full text available on the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

without charge—in their own writing as compared with toll 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 the impact factor of open access journals relative to journals without open access. The related bias, no abstract available bias (NAA bias) is scholars' tendency to cite journal articles that have an abstract available online more readily than articles that do not.

Publication bias

Publication bias is a type of bias with regard to what academic

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 a significant finding), which leads to a problematic bias in the published literature. This can propagate further as literature reviews of claims about support for a

hypothesis A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...

will themselves be biased if the original literature is contaminated by publication bias.H. Rothstein, A. J. Sutton and M. Borenstein. (2005). ''Publication bias in meta-analysis: prevention, assessment and adjustments''. Wiley. Chichester, England; Hoboken, NJ. Studies with significant results often do not appear to be superior to studies with a null result with respect to quality of

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

. However, statistically significant results have been shown to be three times more likely to be published compared to papers with null results.

Biases in law enforcement

Driving while black

Driving Driving is the controlled operation and movement of a land vehicle, including cars, motorcycles, trucks, and buses. A driver's permission to drive on public highways is granted based on a set of conditions being met, and drivers are required to ...

while black refers to the racial profiling of

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

drivers. The phrase implies that a motorist might be pulled over by a

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

officer, questioned, and searched, because of a racial bias.

Racial profiling

Racial profiling, or ethnic profiling, is the act of suspecting or targeting a person of a certain race on the basis of racially observed characteristics or behavior, rather than on individual suspicion. Racial profiling is commonly referred to regarding its use by

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

, and its leading to discrimination against minorities.

Victim blaming

Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a wrongful act is held at fault for the harm that befell them. The study of victimology seeks to mitigate the perception of victims as responsible.

Biases in media

Media bias is the bias or perceived bias of

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

s and news producers within the

in the selection of events, the stories that are reported, and how they are covered. The term generally implies a pervasive or widespread bias violating the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The level of media bias in different nations is debated. There are also watchdog 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 A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

influence including overt and covert

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

, the influence of the owners of the news source, concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

, and pressure from advertisers. Bias has been a feature of the mass media since its birth with the invention of the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...

. 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.

Agenda setting

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, its salience will increase.

Gatekeeping

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."

Sensationalism

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."Issue Area: Sensationalism."
Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Accessed June 2011. Sensationalism may involve reporting about insignificant matters and events, or the presentation of newsworthy topics in a trivial or tabloid manner contrary to the standards of professional journalism.

Other contexts

Educational bias

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. 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.

Inductive bias

Inductive bias occurs within the field of

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

. In machine learning one seeks to develop

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s that are able to ''learn'' 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. 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. 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 is Occam's Razor, which assumes that the simplest consistent hypothesis is the best.

Insider trading

Insider trading is the trading of a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) by individuals with access to non-public information about the company. In various 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.

Match fixing

In organized

sports Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...

, 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. 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 better draft pick, or an easier opponent in a playoff), or to rig a handicap system. Match-fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match-fixing, known as spot-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.

Implicit bias

An implicit bias, or implicit stereotype, is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. 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 implicit social 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. The existence of implicit bias is supported by a variety of scientific articles in psychological literature. Implicit stereotype was first defined by psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald in 1995.

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{{Philosophical logic Communication of falsehoods Barriers to critical thinking Prejudices