Biases and Filters

Bias and Filters

A bias is when we look at something and our background knowledge and experience acts like a filter that we use to see the world with. Ideally, we want to be aware of our biases and remove them to the degree that is possible. Of course, it is not possible to remove all bias, so all observations are inherently biased, even if we think we are being as objective as we can and are not using any filters. 

There are at least three kinds of biases:

'Confirmational bias' is when our observations support what we expect to see. We may unconsciously filter out what does not support our bias. Take dominance for example. One person looks at a dog’s behavior and see a dog trying to be dominant. Another sees a dog offering an appeasing behavior. The behavior is the same, the bias is different.
'Cargo cult bias' is when we see what we want to see. If we focus only on one thing, we miss others, such as in the basketball passing video. Peer review can help, but only if the whole population does not have the same bias. (Also called inattentional blindness).
'Processing bias' is when the technology we create to do the measuring/observing adds a bias. All technology has the same bias as the person creating it.
All this is to say that even without knowing it, each person bias their observations.

1. If someone is looking at dog behavior with a strong filter that dogs do not have a language, which type of bias would this be?  

2. What if a person has a bias that a dog is an aggressive dog?

(answers below activity)

ACTIVITY

Choose a picture, a scene with at least one person or animal in it and take a few minutes to write down a brief story about what is happening. When several people do it, there are usually several different interpretations of what might be happening. This is an effect of bias. 

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Answers to questions:
1. Both Confirmational and Cargo Cult bias. To a human, dog language may appear only as disconnected barks, howl or yelps.If they do not expect that other dogs will respond to it, they will not see it because they do expect to see it. For Cargo Cult bias,  if they are not looking for meaning, they will not see it. 

2. Both Confirmational and Cargo Cult bias. For confirmational bias, behaviors the dog does that are not neutral or excitement will be seen through the filter of aggression. In reality, they may be fearful, for example. A dog that is a resource guarder is fearful of losing the resource.
Cargo Cult also applies as we may filter out any behaviors that are not seen as aggressive and so we only focus on aggressive behaviors.