Bias or Prejudice?

A hiring manager reviews two identical resumes, one with the name 'Emily' and one with 'Lakisha.' He unconsciously rates 'Emily's' resume slightly higher, perceiving it as more professional.

Bias

A landlord sees a rental application from someone with a Middle Eastern-sounding name and immediately decides not to rent to them, believing 'those people' are untrustworthy.

Prejudice

A person walking down the street sees a group of teenagers in hoodies and crosses the street, assuming they are dangerous and planning to commit a crime.

Prejudice

A news organization consistently uses menacing, shadowed photos for stories about politicians from one party, while using bright, smiling photos for politicians from another.

Bias

Reviewers who know the famous author of a scientific paper rate it highly. Reviewers who read the exact same paper, but attributed to an unknown author, rate it poorly

Bias

A teacher consistently calls on male students more often than female students to answer complex math problems, without realizing they are doing it.

Bias

A store owner refuses to serve a customer wearing a religious head covering, openly stating they 'don't want their kind' in the establishment.

Prejudice

An algorithm designed to screen loan applications disproportionately rejects applicants from certain zip codes because its training data reflected historical, systemic inequalities.

Bias

A person believes all individuals who belong to a specific political party are uneducated and morally corrupt, refusing to listen to any of their arguments.

Prejudice

A manager gives a higher performance rating to an employee who shares his hobbies and attended the same university, despite the employee's performance being average.

Bias

A journalist interviewing a successful female CEO focuses 80% of the questions on her family life, while male CEOs are asked only about business strategy.

Bias

A group of friends mock and exclude a new person from their social circle simply because of their strong foreign accent, believing it makes them 'stupid.'

Prejudice

A person hears about a crime committed by an immigrant and says, 'See? This is why we need to stop all immigration. They all just cause problems.'

Prejudice

A research team stops collecting data for their experiment once they get a result that supports their initial hypothesis, ignoring subsequent data that might contradict it.

Bias

An individual believes that all people over the age of 70 are incapable of learning new technology and are a burden on society.

Prejudice

A city council's zoning laws are written in a way that, while facially neutral, effectively prevents the construction of affordable housing in wealthy neighborhoods.

Bias

A doctor dismisses a female patient's severe pain as 'anxiety' or 'being emotional,' but treats a male patient with identical symptoms by ordering immediate, extensive tests.

Bias

A person sees a heavily tattooed individual and immediately thinks they must be unprofessional and have a criminal record, refusing to even consider them for a job.

Prejudice

A venture capitalist firm invests almost exclusively in startups founded by men from elite schools, believing they are inherently 'safer bets' than founders from other backgrounds.

Bias

A history textbook describes a nation's colonization of another country as a 'civilizing mission,' omitting all accounts of the violence and exploitation experienced by the indigenous population.

Bias