Bias

Bias is defined as distortion of judgment or perception of a person or group based on the person's or group's race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, heritage, or ancestry, resulting in differential treatment in clinical work, diagnosis, and testing. The term bias has been used interchangeably with prejudice, specifically related to holding a distinct point [Page 1015]of view or ideology. Stereotypes contribute to biases and negative perceptions of people who are different than oneself or perceived as an “outgroup.” Concurrently, individuals may use stereotypes to form biases and predict or explain behavior of members of an outgroup, although it is possible for individuals to hold biases and believe a stereotype but not apply it to certain individuals from that group.

A recent decrease in biases may be attributed to social norms that promulgate politically correct attitudes and behaviors rooted in conformity rather than an authentic reduction of prejudice. Subsequently, outright expressions of bias have become less acceptable causing some people to appear unbiased while holding biased viewpoints and creating a close link between internalizing and expressing personal bias and social acceptability.

Individuals typically are exposed to family bias during early childhood and learn to disparage those who are different from them. During later years, children learn biases from peer groups, surrounding communities, and the mass media when they are exposed to overrepresentations of negative stereotypes and gross generalizations of groups such as ethnic and racial minorities. Bias also may occur from direct experience or conflict between one's own group and other groups that may cultivate irrational assumptions and attitudes.

Theories of bias and prejudice have historically emerged in response to circumstances and events, causing shifting theories about the origin of bias that parallel particular circumstances at a given time. A brief historical summary of racial bias provides an excellent framework for understanding current biases. During the 1920s, racial differences became a prominent social theme so theories of prejudice focused on understanding racial differences and antipathies. Race theories looked at inferiorities of outgroups and discussed the backwardness of inferior races in terms of lacking intelligence and evolutionary backwardness, which, in the 1930s, shifted dramatically away from inferiority of outgroups and the superiority of Whites to causes of bias. Social scientists began examining attitudes and beliefs held within the dominant European American group toward other racial and ethnic minority groups and the unjustness and flaws of these biases, leading to an emphasis of White prejudice rather than ethnic and racial minority inferiority.

The 1940s evolved into an era of understanding about White racism. The concepts of unconscious psychological processes and defense mechanisms were introduced as roots of prejudice, exploring psychodynamic processes and bias. The 1950s shifted away from intrapsychic processes and an individual focus presenting prejudice as a by-product of personality development and social conditioning, related to Nazi racial ideology and personality traits conducive to developing biases. The next 2 decades deemphasized individual bias, focusing on group conformity and social norms as the cause of bias. At the same time a growing civil rights movement and heightened concern with other social and political issues led to emphasizing social conditions as underlying roots to prejudice, a view that continued through the 1980s and beyond.

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