Systemic Bias - Bias in Human Institutions

Bias in Human Institutions

For example, one might refer to the systemic, systematic, or institutional bias of a particular institution in devaluing contributions by women, men or ethnic minorities. For example, a poetry competition that was consistently won by white women could be subject to suspicion of a bias if there were no inherent reason that white women would consistently be the best poets. Such a bias could be deliberate on the part of the judges or entirely unconscious.

For example, the poetry contest might be judged by a pool drawn from its own previous winners, reasoning that prize-winning poets are the best to judge a poetry contest. However, it might be that in addition to choosing for poetic skill, they are also inclined to choose people with whom they have values in common, either about poetry or about other matters, resulting in a continuous stream of prizewinning white female poets. In this case, the bias could arise from either conscious or unconscious defense of gender and racial interests or simply from their shared point of view. In either case, it results in a biased representation of the reality they are describing in terms of quality of poets and poetry.

Because cognitive bias is inherent in the experiences, loyalties, and relationships of people in their daily lives, it cannot be eliminated by education or training, but awareness of biases can be enhanced, allowing for the adoption of compensating correction mechanisms. For example, the theory behind affirmative action in the United States is precisely to counter biases in matters of gender, race, and ethnicity, by opening up institutional participation to people with a wider range of backgrounds, and hence presumably a wider range of points of view. In India the system of scheduled castes and tribes was intended to address systemic bias within the caste system. Similar to affirmative action, it mandates the hiring of persons within certain designated groups. However, in both instances (as well as numerous others), many people claim that a reverse systemic bias now exists.