Bias

For Wikipedia's policy on avoiding bias, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

In theory, bias is a term used to describe a preference to a particular perspective or ideology, which means all information and point of views has some form of bias. A person is generally said to be biased if the person's output is influenced by inner biases, to the extent that one's views is not subjectively considered neutral or objective.

In practice

Bias may result from opining on a subject while holding a particular viewpoint on the subject, and not applying neutral point of view correction to the process, whether consciously or unconsciously.

In practice, an accusation of bias often results from a perception of unacknowledged favoritism on the part of a critic or judge, or indeed any person in a position requiring the careful and disinterested exercise of arbitration or assessment. Any tendency to favour a certain set of values naturally leads to an uneven dispensation of judgment. It may also be noted that, if a person were to take their own preexisting view as a priori balanced without acknowledging their own personal inclinations, any person or organization that disagrees with their views is likely to be viewed as biased regardless of that person or organization's actual efforts at balance. It may be observed that bias is, in a sense, reflexive, unacknowledged or unrecognized bias potentially leading to its apprehension (with or without good reason) in others.

Effects of biases

A bias could lead one to accept or deny the truth of a claim, not on the basis of the strength of the arguments in support of the claim themselves, but because of the extent of the claim's correspondence with one's own preconceived ideas. This is called confirmation bias.

Forms of biases

These are just a few popular ones.

• Class: bias favoring one social class and bias ignoring social or class divisions.
• Commercial: advertising, coverage of political campaigns favoring corporate interests, or reporting favoring media owner interests.
• Cognitive bias
• Cultural bias: interpreting and judging phenomena in terms particular to one's own culture.
• Ethnic or racial: racism, nationalism, regionalism and tribalism.
• Geographical: describing a dispute as it is conducted in one country, when the dispute is framed differently elsewhere.
• Inductive bias
• Media bias: real or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events will be reported and how they are covered
• Nationalistic: favoring or opposing the interests or views of a particular nation.
• Gender: including sexism and heteronormativity.
• Linguistic: bias, favoring certain languages
• Political: bias in favor of or against a particular political party, philosophy, policy or candidate.
• Religious: bias for or against religion, faith or beliefs;
• Sensationalist: favoring the exceptional over the ordinary. This includes emphasizing, distorting, or fabricating exceptional news to boost commercial ratings.
• Scientific (including anti-scientific and scientific skepticism): favoring (or disfavoring) a scientist, inventor, or theory for non-scientific reasons. This can also include excessive favoring (or disfavoring) prevalent scientific opinion, if in doing so, notable viewpoints are no longer being treated neutrally.
• Statistical: one example is a biased sample.
• Systematic: bias resulting from a flaw integral to the system within which the bias arises (for example, an incorrectly calibrated thermostat may consistently read — that is 'be biased' — several degrees hotter or colder than actual temperature). As a consequence, systematic bias commonly leads to systematic errors, as opposed to random errors, which tend to cancel one another out.

See also

• Bias (textile)
• List of cognitive biases
• Scholarly method
• Weasel words

External links

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