Bias is disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is 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. Statistical bias results from an unfair sampling of a population, or from an estimation process that does not give accurate results on average.EtymologyThe word appears to derive from Old Provençal into Old French bias, "sideways, askance, against the grain". Whence comes French biais, "a slant, a slope, an oblique".It seems to have entered 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". 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 behavior. 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 may allow speedier choices when speed is 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.AnchoringAnchoring is a psychological heuristic that describes the propensity to rely on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions. According to this heuristic, individuals begin with an implicitly suggested reference point and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate.ApopheniaApophenia, also known as patternicity, or authenticity, 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, 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 biasAn attribution bias can happen when individuals assess or attempt to discover explanations behind their own and others' behaviors. People make attributions about the causes of their own and others' behaviors, but these attributions don't necessarily precisely reflect reality. Rather than operating as objective perceivers, individuals are inclined to perceptual slips that prompt biased understandings of their social world. When judging others we tend to assume their actions are the result of internal factors such as personality, whereas we tend to assume our own actions arise because of the necessity of external circumstances. There is a wide range of sorts of attribution biases, such as the ultimate attribution error, fundamental attribution error, actor-observer bias, and self-serving bias
