Which type of bias can lead to systemic discrimination?

Societal bias is the type of bias that can lead to systemic discrimination because it reflects the collective beliefs, values, and norms of a society, which can inherently favor certain groups over others. This type of bias is deeply rooted in social structures and can influence the behavior and decisions of individuals and institutions.

When societal biases pervade various systems—for example, in employment, criminal justice, and education—they can manifest as systemic discrimination, disadvantaging specific groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, or socioeconomic status. These biases are not just individual prejudices; rather, they are embedded in societal frameworks and can result in policies and practices that reinforce inequalities over time.

Other types of biases, while they can impact decisions and outcomes, do not necessarily lead to systemic discrimination in the same way. Cognitive bias pertains to individual judgment errors influenced by personal beliefs and mental shortcuts, selection bias relates to a problem in statistical sampling where certain outcomes are favored due to the selection criteria, and computational bias occurs from the biases embedded in algorithms and data sets used in machine learning and AI technologies. While all these biases can contribute to unfair outcomes, it is societal bias that is fundamentally linked to broader systemic discrimination affecting groups on a macro level.