bias

Examples of bias in the following topics:

• Biases in Experimental Design: Validity, Reliability, and Other Issues

  • Research studies with small sample sizes, high variability, and sampling bias are usually not representative of the general population.
  • A study's external validity can be threatened by such factors as small sample sizes, high variability, and sampling bias.
  • Sampling bias occurs when the sample participating in the study is not representative of the general population.
  • Response bias (also known as "self-selection bias") occurs when only certain types of people respond to a survey or study.
  • Many of the admittedly "non-scientific" polls taken on television or websites suffer from response bias.

• Memory Distortions and Biases

  • There are many identified types of bias that influence people's memories.
  • Hindsight bias is the "I knew it all along!"
  • In this type of bias, remembered events will seem predictable, even if at the time of encoding they were a complete surprise.
  • This is known as the self-serving bias.
  • Evaluate how mood, suggestion, and imagination can lead to memory errors or bias

• Heuristics and Cognitive Biases

  • When interpreting data, a researcher must avoid cognitive bias and be aware of the use of heuristics to avoid drawing incorrect conclusions.
  • However, this heuristic can introduce bias in research, in which it is by definition important to remain an objective observer.
  • A cognitive bias is the mind's tendency to come to incorrect conclusions based on a variety of factors.
  • Hindsight bias occurs in psychological research when researchers form "post hoc hypotheses."
  • Confirmation bias is especially dangerous in psychological research.

• Cultural Influences on Perception

  • Attribution theory, also called actor-observer bias, focuses on the attribution or causes of an action.
  • The Egocentric bias causes individuals to think more positively about themselves than others think of them.
  • The Over-confidence bias causes individuals to overestimate their own confidence.
  • The Status Quo bias demonstrates that individuals give preference to things which are familiar.
  • The Ingroup bias shows a preference for individuals who are in one's own group affiliation.

• Problem-Solving

  • The way we solve problems can be influenced by algorithms, heuristics, intuition, insight, confirmation bias, and functional fixedness.
  • These spontaneous decisions are often associated with functional fixedness, confirmation bias, insight and intuition phenomenology, heuristics, and algorithms.
  • Confirmation bias arises when a person makes decisions based upon what he or she already believes to be true.
  • Some of these mental processes include functional fixedness, confirmation bias, insight and intuition phenomenology, heuristics, and algorithms.
  • Examine how algorithms, heuristics, intuition, insight, confirmation bias, and functional fixedness can influence judgment and decision making.

• Attribution

  • People are susceptible to bias and error when making attributions about themselves and others.
  • A few common such biases include the fundamental attribution error, the self-serving bias, the actor-observer bias, and the just-world hypothesis.
  • Self-serving bias is the tendency of individuals to make internal attributions when their actions have a positive outcome but external attributions when their actions have a negative outcome.
  • This bias lets us continue to see ourselves in a favorable light and protects our self-esteem; we take credit for our successes and pin our failures on other factors.
  • People from individualist cultures are more inclined to make the fundamental attribution error and demonstrate self-serving bias than people from collectivist cultures.

• Surveys and Interviews

  • Surveys are a low-cost option for gathering a large amount of data, but they are also susceptible to reporting bias.
  • The major issue with this method is its accuracy: since surveys depend on subjects' motivation, honesty, memory, and ability to respond, they are very susceptible to bias.
  • While survey research is one of the most common types of psychological study, it can be difficult to create a survey that is free of bias and that reliably measures the factors it aims to capture.
  • The way a question is written can confuse a participant or bias their response, and poorly framed or ambiguous questions will likely result in meaningless responses with very little value.
  • While survey research is one of the most common types of psychological study, it can be difficult to create a survey that is free of bias and that reliably measures the factors it aims to capture.

• Social Psychology

  • The field is also concerned with common cognitive biases—such as the fundamental attribution error, the actor-observer bias, the self-serving bias, and the just-world hypothesis—that influence our behavior and our perceptions of events.

• Group Differences in Intelligence

  • Third, while the data clearly shows differences in test scores, it remains possible that the test takers were the victims of inherent bias and thus no difference actually exists.
  • Potential causes include socioeconomics, test bias, and stereotype threat.
  • Test bias refers to the construct of the test itself as it is applied to different populations.

• Considerations for Eyewitness Testimony

  • ., the own-race bias, cross-race effect, other-ethnicity effect, same-race advantage) is one factor thought to affect the accuracy of facial recognition.
  • The ambiguity in eyewitness memory of facial recognition can be attributed to the divergent strategies that are used when under the influence of racial bias.