Bias: The so repugnant creature.
As a teacher I have always tried to stay away from bias. Bias not only destroys any reliability or validity of tests or raters but it might even destroy societies. Bias in any society kills motivation, competition and equality. Before coming to the states I spend most of my life in a different society. In that society, bias was done on a large scale where it is part of the social mentality. The strange thing is that no one would name bias but it was understood as being social obligation due to the nature of the relationships between the teacher and the parents of the students. Favorable treatment and more lenient standards were shown by teachers in case there is a family or personal relation with the student’s family. Not only it was normal but it was also expected from educators as part of their social loyalty to friends and family. Human bias exists in almost all societies but in various levels or degrees.
I was never popular to some people since I refused to follow the norm and tried to be objective even with the closest members of my family. I have always believed in fairness and equality in society but it was a struggle to realize that in reality. If there was a job vacancy, a new graduate in that country,most of the time, would give up since he knows the one who would get the job is a friend or a relative of the person responsible for choosing the “right” candidate. That killed the spirit of competition and motivation among applicants and job seekers in general. Although there could be a test or an interview but it was known that the results will be skewed by the biased panel. Bias is like a cancer that starts small and kills the whole community. I think the best analogy to bias is beauty criteria in each culture. Each society views and interprets bias differently in a way similar to how each culture views criteria of beauty in that society. In other words bias is relative according to how each culture understands it.
There is a higher chance of bias if the evaluation is related to a personal test such as the intelligence or the performance of an individual person. In a personal interview, the interviewer’s evaluation is more likely to be biased than in an academic group test within a computer controlled environment. The interviewer’s decision could be affected by many factors such as gender, race, or religion.
On a personal note, I experienced bias where my supervisor based his judgment of employee’s annual input on his personal relation with the employee rather than the employee actual performance during the year. It hurt me when I saw other employees who are not as hardworking or as qualified get promoted and get what they don’t really deserve.