The verb skew has two meanings: to cut something diagonally or to twist something in one direction. Similarly, the noun bias has several meanings. It can be a type of diagonal cut that is made on some garments (in the making of a skirt or a dress). If we want to refer to the orientation of an issue, we will say that it has a certain bias (for example, a debate with a controversial bias).
At the same time, bias can indicate a partial attitude on the part of a person, as occurs with the adjective biased (for example, when someone who should be objective in their evaluations adopts an interested position, that is, biased).
In the different meanings indicated above, the word bias has something in common: there is a deviation in some sense, in a cut, in the aspect that a matter acquires or in the lack of objectivity.
Cognitive bias
Factors that alter objective knowledge may intervene in the information assimilation process. One of these factors is precisely cognitive bias. Psychologists refer to cognitive biases in reference to the prejudices that we have towards reality. Thus, a macho, racist or classist person has an evident cognitive bias, since their valuation of women, people of other races or individuals belonging to a different social class are based on preconceived ideas and, therefore, their valuations they are biased.
Psychologists have studied some of the different types of more common cognitive biases (we judge others based on our own values or we tend to analyze other people's things according to the parameters of our profession, among many other deviations or biases).
The idea of media bias or media bias
The media carry out their informative activity based on objective, rigorous criteria and in theory avoiding any bias or biased attitude. However, in the different communication media certain biases frequently appear that question the informative objectivity.
Some examples could be the following: information that favors a particular social group (for example, entrepreneurs who advertise in a media), information that benefits members of a community or an ethnic group, or any informational approach that expresses a prejudice in some sense.
Photos: iStock - sturti / Steve Debenport
