

These characteristics can be common routes of unconscious bias categorising people into social groups with prejudice beliefs about their character and ability. Some characteristics that could be used in labelling or stereotyping include: age, gender, race, religion or disability. It can be used to create labels and stereotypes about other people based on particular characteristics even without having any prior interaction with them. This means that we can all be guilty of unconscious bias, despite thinking that we have carefully considered our thought process and believe ourselves to be fair thinkers.

Kahneman found that the system two part of our brain is influenced by system one so, the thoughts and beliefs that we consciously think about are driven by bias from our unconscious thinking from our system one brain. It is our slower thought processor that is initiated when we think consciously and deliberately. System two accounts for the remaining 2% of our thinking. System one accounts for 98% of our overall thinking, and is the fast, unconscious, automated thought processor that we do not realise is functioning in our day-to-day life. He identified that our brains have two systems – system one and system two. When an opinion is created using subjectivity, it is a biased opinion.ĭaniel Kahneman, an influential psychologist, dedicated much of his work to studying the brain functioning for human judgement and decision-making breaking down the process of how biased thoughts are created. Subjectivity is using your personal feelings and opinions to judge something, as opposed to casting judgement based on facts, without prior opinion (which is objectivity). This is because our brain uses a subjective view to create an opinion about a particular person or thing. However, this thought process can also cause us to treat some people more favourably or less favourably unnecessarily.
AFFINITY BIAS DEFINITION HOW TO
Using the information that our brain is interpreting we can create judgements about things or people to influence our next actions (such as how to escape danger). It is a necessary function that supports us in day-to-day life, to help us avoid danger.

This information processing happens at a rapid speed and contributes to how we make sense of the world. Using the human senses, the brain aims to detect information that can help us in real life situations. The human brain makes judgements every day that help to keep ourselves safe through decision-making.
