Bias

Definition of Bias in Psychology

The basic meaning of a bias is the tendency to oppose or support an idea, person, or concept over another without maintaining objectivity. In other words, choices, decisions, or perspectives under a bias may often be seen as unfair.

Of course, this can pose a threat in many aspects of the realm of psychology. Because of the empirical and scientific nature of psychological studies and investigations, biases are factors within research that experimenters, review boards, and consumers are highly skeptical of.

This is just one example of possible bias within the topic of psychological research. While the presence of this bias was clear, not all biases are easy to spot.

In fact, whether you notice it or not, you and society as we know it, operate under biases all the time! No one individual is perfect or safe from the unconscious and natural decision-making that occurs under personal bias. These factors may even influence your friendships, love interests, work environments, beliefs, and perspectives.

Bias Types in Psychology

Let's go over the common types of bias people exhibit every day in society.

All types of bias in psychology fall under two main categories:

1. Conscious bias

2. Unconscious bias

As the names suggest, there are a few fundamental differences between them.

Explicit Bias and Conscious Bias

A conscious bias, also known as explicit bias, is one of the main types of biases that is characterized by a person's awareness surrounding their own biases. Unlike implicit bias, conscious biases often feature intentional behaviors and expressions that adhere to prejudices, opinions, and judgmental attitudes.

More often than not, someone exhibiting a conscious bias is engaging in discriminative or exclusive actions and behavior towards opposing groups or ideas. This can be seen in a vast amount of political, ethical, and societal issues experienced in the world today.

The issue of conscious biases regarding ethnicity and racial prejudice occurs on a global scale, and remains unresolved. Hopefully, through continued education on these harmful biases, further efforts will be made to eradicate such disturbing behavior.

Implicit Bias and Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias, or implicit bias, contains multiple subdivisions. These underlying biases may often go completely unnoticed. These biases can influence several facets of your own life, from the types of food you eat all the way to the friends you choose to surround yourself with. These types of biases may or may not be harmless to daily life; however, they are a part of what makes us human.

Let’s go over the different types of unconscious bias and examples of what these biases might look like in real-life.

Actor-Observer Bias

This type of bias describes the tendency we, as humans have, to attribute our behaviors and actions to factors outside of our own control. Apart from this, people tend to attribute others’ actions and behavior to their intentional demeanors and personalities, rather than factors outside of their control.

Anchoring Bias

This bias is the common inclination one has to rely too heavily on initial impressions and information. In other words, a first impression or early information may cloud the individual's ability to think objectively in judgments that follow.

Attentional Bias

Similar to anchoring bias, this type of bias is characterized by the tendency to disregard other details due to the over-emphasis on particular bits of information. However, in attentional bias, a person will focus on several different aspects of important information, and disregard some key factors in the process.

Examples of Bias in Psychology

There are several famous psychological studies surrounding the topic of bias in society and group behavior; however, there are also many instances where bias has affected the legitimacy of certain studies themselves.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is one type of unconscious bias that consistently presents conflict within research without the right precautions. This bias is the error presented when someone uses support and evidence surrounding an outcome that only supports their previous beliefs, while disregarding any conflicting evidence. In psychological research, this can be a significant problem, as it is indicative of a failure to maintain objectivity and empiricism in a study.

Availability Heuristic

This category of bias demonstrates the propensity many people have to rely too heavily on information stored in their memory that is easier to retrieve. In doing so, one will oftentimes leave out substantial information needed for judgment. Another issue with the availability heuristic is that memory is sometimes deemed unreliable due to a number of factors.