Social Perception - Bias

Bias

Social bias is defined as "prejudicial attitudes towards particular groups, races, sexes, or religions, including the conscious or unconscious expression of these attitudes in writing, speaking, etc (social)." There are many different causes and many theories behind any one of the many effects of Social Bias. Some of the major effects are

Self

• Dunning-Kruger Effect – Describes an effect by which people may perform badly at a task, but lack the mental capability to evaluate and recognize that they have done poorly (Hawes).
• Egocentric Bias – The tendency to give more credit to ourselves from positive outcomes than an observer.
• Overconfidence Bias – Overestimating one's own confidence (part of the Dunning-Kruger Effect).
• Forer Effect (Barnum Effect) – Placing high belief in a general description thinking it was meant specifically for an individual, aka horoscopes

Group

• Status Quo Bias – Tendency to favor certain circumstances because they are familiar.
• Ingroup Bias – Behaving a certain way to become more favorable in a group
• Stereotyping – Attributing traits to people based on certain traits of the group.

Interaction

• Halo Effect – Tendency to believe in the nature of a person (good/bad) based on general traits of people
• False Consensus – Assuming others agree with what we do (even though they may not).
• Projection Bias – Assuming others share the same beliefs as us.
• Actor-observed Bias – Tendency to blame our actions on the situation and blame the action of others based on their personalities