Bias and Prejudice

COMMON TYPES OF BIAS

1. Anchoring Bias- This happens when people are too relied on current information or the initial information they find in
decision-making
2. Media Bias - This happens when the journalists and news producers in the mass media select what to report and cover.
3. Confirmation - This happens when one tends to search for, interpret, favor and remember information supporting one's
belief and views.

4. Conformity - This happens when one makes a wrong or uncomfortable decision to fit in to please the group of people.
5. Halo Effect - This happens when one sees the wonderful thing about a person and let the perceptions on everything else
about that person be distorted.

TYPES OF PREJUDICE
1. Racism - This is the idea that groups of people exhibit different personality characteristics and can be separated based on
the dominance of one race over another
2. Sexism – This is prejudice based on sex or gender.
3. Classism – This is a prejudice based on wealth, occupation, income, education, and social network
4. Ageism - This is a prejudicial attitude towards older people, old age, and the aging process
5. Religion – This is the attitude towards a person or group differently because of the particular beliefs about religion.

Determining Relevance and Truthfulness of Ideas in a Material Viewed

Judgment in reading is the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions while considering the text’s
details.
This helps readers in the analysis of the information presented.
Reader -> Goal-directed activity: reading with purpose and discovering new information.
Text -> Relevant -> Reader’s goal

*Information that closely matches a reader’s goal is more relevant

*Information that does not match the goal is less relevant, regardless of its importance.

Viewing is defined as an active process of attending and comprehending visual media, such as television, advertising images,
films, diagrams, symbols, photographs, videos, drama, drawings, sculpture, and paintings.

You should be aware that effective, engaged viewers go through the following steps:
1. Pre-viewing – you prepare to view by activating your schema, anticipating a message, predicting, speculating, asking
questions, and setting a purpose for viewing.
2. During viewing – you view the visual text to understand the message by seeking and checking understanding, making
connections, making and confirming predictions and interferences, interpreting and summarizing, pausing and reviewing, and
analyzing and evaluating.
- your understanding should be monitored by connecting to your schema, questioning, and reflecting.
3. After viewing - You are given opportunities to respond to visual texts in an intimate, critical, and creative way. You
respond by reflecting, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

The Basic Aspects to Consider in Identifying Relevance and Truth.

a. Fallacy – it is an idea which is believed to be true but it is false due to incorrect information or reasoning.
b. Fact – is an idea which is true and can be verified factually or proven.
c. Opinion – is an idea or statement which only comes from someone’s feelings and cannot be proven.
d. Bias – it is an idea that leads to poor judgment and poor decision making towards a certain thing for it could be positive
one in favor of a certain person and negative for the other one.

Determining Main idea and Supporting Details

Facts and opinions help us determine how true a statement is. Thus, in any kind of article, facts and opinions can be used in
developing the paragraph to add details to the main point.

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Main Idea is the most important thought about the topic.
Topic is the person, place, thing, or idea being written about.
- It is often found in the first sentence of a paragraph. However, the main idea may be found in any sentence of the
paragraph.
Two types of Main idea
1. Stated – directly stated.
2. Implied – does not directly stated
Supporting details can be defined as additional information that explains, defines, or proves an idea.
- There are THREE points supporting the main idea.
Example: Lenny is an excellent student. She is intelligent. She is responsible. Lenny always does her homework, and she is never
late for class. As a result of her hard work, Lenny is one of the best students in school.

Judging the Validity of the Evidence Listened to

Listening is one of the macro skills we develop and use in our everyday lives. It is something use for us to be able to give
feedback or respond accordingly.
Two types of listening:
1. Passive Listening - it is when you hear someone or something WITHOUT PAYING FULL ATTENTION; and
Example: Listening to the news on the radio.
2. Active Listening – this is when you FULLY FOCUS and understand the message of what is being said or listened to.
Example: Talking to your professor after not submitting your outputs.

In order to INTERPRET, you must know first what it means and familiarize yourself on how you can do it. When you interpret,
you should be able to explain or convey the message of a certain topic to show that you understand it. You must be an
active/attentive listener to do it.

How to interpret the idea from the material listened to?

- Have enough vocabulary
- Have the memory to recall your experiences and relate it to the idea/concept that you are listening to; and
- Concentrate on the material you are listening.

Fallacy

Fallacy is the use of invalid or faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument.

- It is an idea which is believed to be true but it false due to incorrect information or reasoning.
- This can be misleading and may be committed intentionally or unintentionally to manipulate or persuade by deception.
Types of fallacy:
1. Faulty Logic – it is a kind of persuasive technique used when making statements with imperfect reasoning or in the
absence of sound judgement
Faulty = having faults or imperfect Logic = reason or sound argument
Faulty logic means imperfect reasoning / false reasoning

Example: Since you attended the acting workshop, you will be a great actor someday.
- This statement is an assumption that lacks evidence.
Example: The supplement is being advertised by BTS. This sure is a healthy product to take.
- The fact that the health product is being advertised is good, but the reason to believe it because of the model makes it
illogical or false reasoning.
2. Unsupported fact – it is not being upheld by evidence or facts making the claims unconfirmed.
Example: Filipinos are more hospitable than Koreans.
Men are naturally more violent than women.
- These examples can be convincing but claims without supporting details is considered unsupported fact.
3. Emotional appeal – it is a method of persuasion appealing to both the brain and the heart. Primarily tending to obtain an
emotional reaction.
- Statements that fall under this category might be kind of convincing since they can give us reasons why they are true but
they are just manipulating emotional responses in place of a valid or complete argument.
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 Example: Luke did not want to eat his sheep’s brain with chopped liver, but his father told him to think about the poor,
starving children in the world/country who were not fortunate enough to have any food at all.

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* it is important to recognize fallacy in an argument and critically determine the type used such as faulty logic,
unsupported fact, and emotional appeal, so that we can identify what to believe or not and state our reasons why we
have come up with the decision made.

Faulty Logic

Faulty logic has its own types that considered as logical fallacies.
Six (6) types of faulty logic:
1. Circular reasoning
2. Overgeneralization
3. Self-contradiction
4. False causality
5. Oversimplification
6. Assumption

1. Circular reasoning – it is an argument that goes around and around with the reason making the same claim as the
original arguments.
- When the second half of a statement says basically the same things as the first half.
- Instead of offering evidence, it simply repeats the conclusion.
Example: Willaim Shakespeare is a wonderful writer because he writes so well.
- When we learn that he is a wonderful writer, we already can tell that he has exceptional writing abilities, which does not
need to be explained again with the same thought of from the first half of the statement.
It’s time to go to bed because this is your bedtime.
The Bible is true, and so you should not doubt God’s word.
- We can automatically tell what the speaker intends to tell us by reading the first half of the claims, but in circular
reasoning, the speaker’s attempts to persuade us with their statements make them too redundant and may no longer be
convincing.
2. Overgeneralization – it is a logical fallacy of making a claim based on a sample size far too small to support a claim.
- Reaches conclusions from a limited number of facts.
- All, every, and always are usually words that are present.
Example: I loved that series we saw last night with Tom Hiddleson as Loki. I am going to rent all his movies, and I am sure
I’ll like all of them.
I saw a basketball player sneeze; thus, all basketball players have allergies.
Every time I’ve been to Mauban, the weather has been rainy. It’s always raining in Mauban.
3. Self – contradiction – it is when the argument states a position that contradicts an earlier stated premised.
- The content refutes each other, making the truth impossible.
- Two truths are made to contradicts.
Example: The only thing that is certain is uncertainty.
As mayor, my top priority will be improving education. So, my first act of office will be to cut funding for our public
schools.
- We all know that public schools are under education which should be part of the improvement plan by the mayor.
4. False causality / False cause – it is a type of reasoning occurring when someone is incorrectly assumes that a causal
relation exists between two things or events.
- People concludes that one thing is the cause of another despite not having connection.
Example: Every time I bring my umbrella with me, it rains. Clearly, if I leave it at home, there will be sunshine.
- There is no connection between the umbrella and the changes in weather.
According to a recent study, individuals who listen to heavy metal music are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior.
Therefore, heavy metal music causes violence.
- There is no connection between genre of music and people’s behavior.
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 5. Assumption – occurs whenever the truth of a premise depends on some necessary condition which is merely assumed to
be present when it is not in fact present at all.
Example: James speaks well; he would make a good politician.
- Speaking skills aren’t the enough to be a good politician. There’s a lot of qualities we consider necessary to become
politicians, and there are also other things to check to be called ‘good’.

6. Oversimplification – occurs when actual causes of an event are reduced or multiplied to the point where connections
between causes and effects are blurred or buried.
- making complicated issue seems very simple by using terms of suppressing information which leads to misunderstanding or
misinterpretation by presenting a topic as simpler than it truly is.

Validity and Reliability

Validity / valid - refers to the accuracy of measure.

- It is the extent to which the instruments that are used in the experiment measure exactly what you want them to measure.
Reliability / Reliable – refers to the consistency of a measure.
- it is the extent to which the outcomes are consistent when the experiment is repeated more than once.
* Validity and reliability are both about how well a method measures something.

Things to consider in checking validity and reliability of information

1. Author of the source

- is s/he a recognized expert in the field?
- Are they representing an organization? If so, what is the organization’s mission and goals?
2. Source/s of information
- Does the author provide another reliable source to support his/her claim?
- If found on the internet, is the domain / interface trustworthy? (.gov, .edu, .org, etc)
3. Reference/s or citations
- Does the author prove citations from which his/her claims were taken?

Example:
According to Programme for international Stundetn Assessment (PISA) in 2022, Philippines was previously ranked the
second lowest during the 2018 but moved up only seven points with a score of 347 from 340. This could also be viewed on their
website on www.oecd.org