Bias is a tendency to lean in a certain direction, either in favor of or against a

particular thing.
If you're biased toward something, then you lean favorably toward it; you tend
to think positively of it.
Meanwhile, if you're biased against something, then you lean negatively
against it; you tend to think poorly of it.
Truthfully, everyone has biases, preferences and prejudices.
President Trump believes the media possesses a terrible bias against him,
based on unjustifiable prejudice, which leads them to discriminate against
him with unfavorable coverage. He's not the only leader to feel like the
media is biased one way or the other.
Gender Bias
A Cognitive Bias is an error in cognition that arises in a person’s line of reasoning when
making a decision is flawed by personal beliefs. It is the way a particular person understands
events, facts, and other people, which is based on their own particular set of beliefs and
experiences and may not be reasonable or accurate.

 Cognitive biases are ways of thinking about and perceiving the world that may not
necessarily reflect reality.

 We may think we experience the world around us with perfect objectivity, but this is
rarely (if ever) the case.

 Each and every one of us sees things differently based on our preconceptions, past
experiences, and environmental or social factors, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that
the way we think or feel about something is truly representative of reality.

Simply put, cognitive biases are the distortions of reality through which we view the world.
TYPES OF COGNITIVE BIAS
Fundamental Attribution Error (also known as correspondence bias or over-attribution effect)
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore
situational factors in judging others’ behavior.

 Because of the fundamental attribution error, we tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad
people. We’re inclined to ignore situational factors that might have played a role.

 For example, if someone cuts us off while driving, our first thought might be “What a jerk!” instead of considering
the possibility that the driver is rushing someone to the airport. On the flip side, when we cut someone off in traffic,
we tend to convince ourselves that we had to do so.  We focus on situational factors, like being late to a meeting, and
ignore what our behavior might say about our own character.

 For example, in one study when something bad happened to someone else, subjects blamed that person’s behavior
or personality 65% of the time. But, when something bad happened to the subjects, they blamed themselves only
44% of the time, blaming the situation they were in much more often.

So, the fundamental attribution error explains why we often judge others harshly while letting ourselves off the
hook at the same time by rationalizing our own unethical behavior.
 Confirmation Bias is when a person looks for and interprets information (be it news stories, statistical data or
the opinions of others) that backs up an assumption or theory they already have.

 A confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms your previously
existing beliefs or biases.

 For example, if you presented someone with hard evidence that gender bias exists, and they are already
convinced that it doesn't, they're much more likely to dismiss the evidence rather than reconsider your
opinion.

 For example, imagine that a person holds a belief that left-handed people are more creative than right-
handed people. Whenever this person encounters a person that is both left-handed and creative, they place
greater importance on this "evidence" that supports what they already believe. This individual might even
seek proof that further backs up this belief while discounting examples that don't support the idea.
TYPES OF COGNITIVE BIAS
HINDSIGHT BIAS: Hindsight bias is a psychological phenomenon that allows people to convince themselves after an
event that they had accurately predicted it before it happened. This can lead people to conclude that they can
accurately predict other events.
Projection Bias refers to people's assumption that their tastes or preferences will remain the same over time.
The projection bias is a self-forecasting error, where we overestimate how much our future selves will share the
same beliefs, values and behaviors as our current selves, causing us to make short-sighted decisions.

Where this bias occurs

Imagine that you are starving and go to the grocery store to get some food. You might load up your cart with
heaps of snacks: chips, chocolate, pizza, crackers. You get home, pop the pizza in the oven and start eating some
other things you bought while it cooks. When the pizza is done, you realize you’re not hungry anymore. How can
that be — you were starving! Now you have all this junk food that you don’t even want anymore.

“I will always be an early person”, (But present ‘you’ is the night owl)
“I will never eat late hours” (Your future self now can’t control eating late night)
“I will get married only to you” (Many of you did not)
“Ginny will also like Caramel Cake because I do, it is a wonderful flavour” ( Ginny just tasted the cake & gave it
away)
“I invite you all to my party, where we will play cards, watch FIFA together, eat pizzas & get drunk” (& then very
few invitees show up)
A self-serving bias is the common habit of a person taking credit for positive events or outcomes, but
blaming outside factors for negative events. This can be affected by age, culture, clinical diagnosis, and
more. It tends to occur widely across populations.

Examples of self-serving bias

Self-serving bias occurs in all different types of situations, across genders, ages, cultures, and
more. For example:
• A on a test and tells herself that she studied hard or is good at the student gets a good grade e
material. She gets a bad grade on another test and says the teacher doesn’t like her or the test
was unfair.
• Athletes win a game and attribute their win to hard work and practice. When they lose the
following week, they blame the loss on bad calls by the referees.
• A job applicant believes he’s been hired because of his achievements, qualifications, and
excellent interview. For a previous opening he didn’t receive an offer for, he says the interviewer
didn’t like him.

Someone with depression or low self-esteem might invert the self-serving bias: They attribute
negative events to something they did, and positive events to luck or something someone else
did.
The "halo effect" is when one trait of a person or thing is used to make an overall judgment of that
person or thing. It supports rapid decisions, even if biased ones.
For example, a tall or good-looking person will be perceived as being intelligent and trustworthy, even
though there is no logical reason to believe that height or looks correlate with smarts and honesty.
The halo effect occurs when our positive impressions of people, brands, and products in one area lead us
to have positive feelings in another area. This cognitive bias leads us to often cast judgment without
reason.

The halo effect in daily life

While the halo effect may be a new term to you, it’s present in just about every aspect of your daily life.
These include situations involving:
•people you find attractive
•your workplace
•school
•how you respond to marketing campaigns
•medicine and healthcare

Example #1 – Diagnosing health problems

One example of the halo effect can be found in the field of medicine. Doctors can sometimes assume a
patient is healthy because that person appears ‘healthy.’ However, without additional tests, the doctor
cannot know for sure that the patient is completely healthy.
The ‘Curse of knowledge' is a cognitive bias that occurs when highly educated or skilled individuals, when trying
to communicate with others, makes the mistaken assumption that the people with whom they are attempting
to impart information have an adequate educational/experiential background to understand what they are
trying to communicate.

 Many of us have experienced this while talking to a professional (doctor, lawyer, college professor, etc.) or a
skilled tradesman (plumber, draftsman, electrician, etc.) that are speaking from an area of knowledge that
we don't share or understand- if they don't make an effort to "dumb it down" we have difficulty
understanding what they are saying .

 For example a doctor can use a lot of long technical words to describe straightforward ailments such as a
broken arm or leg. These long words will contain information about the name of the bone, the location, the
severity of the break, the type of fracture, etc. (all things that are necessary for documentation and
treatment for the doctor) but more than the average layman needs to know.