Main Difference – Bias vs Prejudice
Bias and prejudice are two attitudes that result in injustice and discrimination. The main difference between bias and prejudice is that bias is an inclination for or against a person, idea or thing, especially in a way considered to be unfair whereas preconceived notion that is not based on actual experience or reason.
What is Bias
Bias is an inclination for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair. It is a belief that some ideas, people, etc. are better than others. When one person is biased towards a certain thing, it is difficult to make a fair judgment. This is why we say that judges should always be biased. Bias is always linked to unfairness.
If you have a good impression of something, then you are biased towards it. But if you have a bad impression of something, you are biased against it. If you have to make a choice about these two things, you’ll be inclined towards the thing you have a good impression about. So you won’t consider its disadvantages or weak qualities much.
For example, imagine that you are a teacher, and you see two students fighting. You personally know one of them. So you jump to the conclusion that it was the other student who started the fight. Here you are being biased towards the student you personally know. But in reality, you really have no idea who started the fight.
What is Prejudice
Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on actual experience or reason. It is often considered to be a negative, unfair towards a person based on that person’s membership in a particular social group. Prejudice can be based on factors like religion, gender, age, caste, and race. For example, some people may consider all Muslim women to be illiterate and uneducated. This is actually a prejudice against religion and gender.
Although prejudice can be both negative and positive, we often tend to have negative views towards those who don’t belong to our social group. In contrast, we show positive attitudes to people who belong to our social groups. This mainly happens because of ignorance and lack of trust. It is also important to note that we learn prejudice from those around us; it is not something we are born with. But it is not very easy to change such prejudices since they have been engrained in people since childhood.
Difference Between Bias and Prejudice
Definition
Bias is an inclination for or against a person, idea or thing, especially in a way considered to be unfair.
Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on actual experience or reason.
Positive vs Negative
Bias can be positive or negative.
Prejudice mostly involves having negative attitudes towards another party.
Result
Bias results in unfairness.
Prejudice often results in discrimination.
Image Courtesy:
“How to Fight Media Bias” by Honest Reporting (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Flickr
“Cartoon” by By Pinkpasty – Own work, (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia
