“You Are Biased, Not Me”

Do you know anyone in your life who often points the finger at others for being biased and yet is completely unaware of their own biased opinions? The answer is most likely yes.

“You are biased, not me”

Source: Lukas/Pexels

Indeed, blaming others for biases and flaws while believing oneself to be innocent is common in everyday life. Even on the national stage, the left and right camps frequently accuse each other of being irrational and biased, while believing that they themselves are rational and impartial. This phenomenon is vividly illustrated in the biblical quotation, “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3).

This “bias of bias,” or bias in bias recognition, may reflect both a motivational process — people want to feel good and righteous about themselves — and a cognitive process — where information about oneself is more readily available than information about others when it comes to informing one’s judgement. It may further reflect a metacognitive deficiency in self-awareness, where people apply their knowledge about biases to understand others’ and their own thoughts and behaviors.

An investigation

We conducted a series of studies to document this phenomenon. We did not directly ask people how much they think of themselves as being biased compared with others, as the direct questioning may elicit untruthful responses due to factors such as social desirability. Instead, we asked participants to predict how they or others would think and behave in situations like the one below, where a person's thoughts and behaviors could be biased by prior beliefs.

You are (Nancy is) a professor evaluating a job candidate, Bill, for your (her) department. You (Nancy) know(s) Bill personally and really like(s) him. Bill has published on average 3 articles a year, which is about the same as the average number of publications by the faculty in the department. How would you (Nancy) evaluate Bill’s performance?

“You are biased, not me”

Source: Liza Summer/ Pexels

We randomly assigned participants to a “self” or “other” condition to make predictions about their own or others’ thoughts and behaviors in the scenarios. In the example above, the bias of bias is apparent when participants predict that the personal fondness for Bill would lead to a more favorable evaluation of Bill’s performance by Nancy (other condition) than by themselves (self condition). This is indeed what we found: Participants recognized greater bias in others than in themselves.

We ran a similar procedure to see how people predict their own versus others’ thoughts and behaviors as influenced by social biases, including sexism, ageism, racism, and classism. Here is an example scenario:

You are (Sterling is) looking around for a neurologist for an aging parent. Two doctors are highly recommended by others, Tom and Emily. Which doctor are you (is Sterling) likely to choose?

The bias in recognizing sexism occurs when participants predict Sterling (other condition) to be more likely than themselves (self condition) to choose Tom over Emily. Indeed, we found that our participants recognized greater sexism, ageism, racism, and classism in others than in themselves.

Interestingly, the bias of bias is particularly salient among people who hold strong beliefs about the prevalence of biases: Participants who strongly agreed to statements like “People see what they want to see,” “People are generally ageists,” and “Most people have the tendency of being racists,” showed a greater tendency to apply biases to others and view themselves as immune to the biases. In other words, the more strongly people believe that biases widely exist, the more inclined they are to ascribe biases to others but not themselves.

In addition, the bias of bias was found across demographic groups, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, and education. We did observe one interesting age difference, whereby older people recognized more social biases in others relative to themselves than younger people.

Is there any remedy?

That is a million-dollar question. We explored a potential remedy for the bias of bias. As human beings, we have the capacity to identify with others and to see things from their perspectives. If we evaluate others alongside ourselves in bias-eliciting situations, maybe we can realize that the same rule applies to all and thus recognize bias similarly in others and ourselves.

We asked participants to read scenarios like the one below, where biased thoughts and behaviors could occur due to prior beliefs:

You, Bob, and Sarah work in the same company. You dislike Sarah and think she is mean. Bob likes Sarah and thinks she is nice. People in the company were asked to donate money for a colleague whose house was recently burned down. Sarah put in $50. What would you and Bob think about the amount of Sarah’s donation?

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If our hypothesis is correct, participants would predict that they and Bob would evaluate similarly Sarah’s generosity despite their different attitudes toward Sarah. In other words, they would recognize a similar magnitude of bias in themselves and Bob. That is indeed what we found: When people considered simultaneously their own and others’ perspectives, their bias of bias dissipated. Thus, raising people’s “social mindfulness” seems to be an effective way to combat the bias of bias.

Conclusion

Bias and discrimination claims have heightened social conflict and political tension in our polarized society. It is of paramount importance to recognize the bias in bias recognition, understand its causes, and identify effective interventions. As individuals, we are all susceptible to biasing influences. Such self-awareness may help to reduce hypervigilance to detect biases in others — especially others who disagree with us. This can, in turn, help us become more open to different views and opinions and thus promote interpersonal understanding and reduce intergroup enmity.