Belief Bias Research Articles

Analysis Effect of Bias lying in Artificial Intelligence: A Survey

Bias, which is one of the most significant social problems, can be reflected the Artificial intelligence. Those biases can be classified into three categories: Gender bias that shows the divergence between males and females, the religious bias that favors some beliefs over others, and racial bias that can be embodied in different AI’s utilization efficiency by whites and nonwhites.

The effects of COVID-19 victimization distress and racial bias on mental health among AIAN, Asian, Black, and Latinx young adults.

U.S. young adult racial minorities have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in rates of infection and morbidity. Prepandemic racial discrimination has been associated with depression and general anxiety. However, the effect of coronavirus-specific forms of discrimination on mental health has not been examined. This study assessed the effect of social determinants of mental health and COVID-19-specific victimization and racial bias beliefs on depression and anxiety among young adults of color in the U.S. A national online survey of 399 American Indian/Alaskan Natives, Asian, Black, and Latinx adults (18-25 years) included demographic variables, COVID-19-health risks, and standardized measures of depression, anxiety, coronavirus-related victimization distress and perceptions of coronavirus-related racial bias across a range of contexts. Employment, financial and prescription insecurity, COVID-19-health risks, coronavirus-victimization distress and coronavirus racial bias beliefs were positively correlated with depression and anxiety. Scores on the Coronavirus Racial Bias Scale were significantly higher among Asian and Black respondents. Structural equation modeling controlling for race/ethnicity and demographic variables indicated coronavirus racial bias mediated the effect of coronavirus victimization distress on both mental health indices. Results suggest the COVID-19 pandemic has created new pathways to mental health disparities among young adults of color by reversing formerly protective factors such as employment, and by exacerbating structural and societal inequities linked to race. Findings highlight the necessity of creating mental health services tailored to the specific needs of racial minorities during the current and future health crises. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

SOCIO-CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES FACED BY PAKISTANI MIGRANTS IN SPAIN

The study focuses on the socio-cultural and religious issues faced by Pakistani migrants living in Spain. The main research objectives were to explore the initial; issues faced by migrants in Spain, the socio-cultural and religious challenges faced by Pakistani migrants in Spain and the way Pakistani migrant ensure their own cultural identity. The qualitative research design based on an interpretive school of thought was used. By using purposive sampling method, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Pakistani migrants. With the help of thematic analysis, the data was analyzed. Some major themes derive from analysis were socioeconomic issue a prime reason of migration, language a big barrier in settling down to the community, residential issues faced by Pakistani migrants in Spain, religious bias and discrimination towards Pakistani migrants, social bias and cultural issues faced by Pakistani children at school. The study concluded that Pakistani migrants face socio-cultural and religious discrimination and were in a struggle to maintain their own cultural identity. Keywords: Migration, Europe and Spain, Pakistani Migrants, Socio-cultural and religious challenges, language barriers, Culture differences, Living style.

Biological Essentialism Correlates With (But Doesn't Cause?) Intergroup Bias.

People with biological essentialist beliefs about social groups also tend to endorse biased beliefs about individuals in those groups, including intensified emphasis on the group, stereotypes, and prejudices. These correlations could be due to biological essentialism causing bias, and some experimental studies support this causal direction. Given this prior work, we expected to find that biological essentialism would lead to increased bias compared with a control condition and set out to extend this prior work in a new direction (regarding "value-based" essentialism). But although the manipulation affected essentialist beliefs and essentialist beliefs were correlated with group emphasis (Study 1), stereotyping (Studies 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c), prejudice (Studies 3a), there was no evidence that biological essentialism caused these outcomes (NTotal = 1,903). Given these findings, our initial research question became moot. We thus focus on reexamining the relationship between essentialism and bias.

Belief bias, conflict detection, and logical complexity

Belief bias, conflict detection, and logical complexity

Effective mitigation of the belief perseverance bias after the retraction of misinformation: Awareness training and counter-speech.

The spread and influence of misinformation have become a matter of concern in society as misinformation can negatively impact individuals' beliefs, opinions and, consequently, decisions. Research has shown that individuals persevere in their biased beliefs and opinions even after the retraction of misinformation. This phenomenon is known as the belief perseverance bias. However, research on mitigating the belief perseverance bias after the retraction of misinformation has been limited. Only a few debiasing techniques with limited practical applicability have been proposed, and research on comparing various techniques in terms of their effectiveness has been scarce. This paper contributes to research on mitigating the belief perseverance bias after the retraction of misinformation by proposing counter-speech and awareness-training techniques and comparing them in terms of effectiveness to the existing counter-explanation technique in an experiment with N = 251 participants. To determine changes in opinions, the extent of the belief perseverance bias and the effectiveness of the debiasing techniques in mitigating the belief perseverance bias, we measure participants' opinions four times in the experiment by using Likert items and phi-coefficient measures. The effectiveness of the debiasing techniques is assessed by measuring the difference between the baseline opinions before exposure to misinformation and the opinions after exposure to a debiasing technique. Further, we discuss the efforts of the providers and recipients of debiasing and the practical applicability of the debiasing techniques. The CS technique, with a very large effect size, is the most effective among the three techniques. The CE and AT techniques, with medium effect sizes, are close to being equivalent in terms of their effectiveness. The CS and AT techniques are associated with less cognitive and time effort of the recipients of debiasing than the CE technique, while the AT and CE techniques require less effort from the providers of debiasing than the CS technique.

Overreaction in Expectations: Evidence and Theory

Abstract We investigate biases in expectations across different settings through a large-scale randomized experiment where participants forecast stable stochastic processes. The experiment allows us to control forecasters’ information sets as well as the data-generating process, so we can cleanly measure biases in beliefs. We report three facts. First, forecasts display significant overreaction to the most recent observation. Second, overreaction is stronger for less persistent processes. Third, overreaction is also stronger for longer forecast horizons. We develop a tractable model of expectations formation with costly processing of past information, which closely fits the empirical facts. We also perform additional experiments to test the mechanism of the model.

Putting Religious Bias in Context: How Offline and Online Contexts Shape Religious Bias in Online Prosocial Lending

Biases on online platforms pose a threat to social inclusion. We examine the influence of a novel source of bias in online philanthropic lending, namely that associated with religious differences. We first propose religion distance as a probabilistic measure of differences between pairs of individuals residing in different countries. We then incorporate this measure into a gravity model of trade to explain variation in country-to-country lending volumes. We further propose a set of contextual moderators that characterize individuals’ offline (local) and online social contexts, which we argue combine to determine the influence of religion distance on lending activity. We empirically estimate our gravity model using data from Kiva.org, reflecting all lending actions that took place between 2006 and 2017. We demonstrate the negative and significant effect of religion distance on lending activity, over and above other established factors in the literature. Further, we demonstrate the moderating role of lenders’ offline social context (diversity, social hostilities, and governmental favoritism of religion) on the aforementioned relationship to online lending behavior. Finally, we offer empirical evidence of the parallel role of online contextual factors, namely those related to community features offered by the Kiva platform (lending teams), which appear to amplify the role of religious bias. In particular, we show that religious team membership is a double-edged sword that has both favorable and unfavorable consequences, increasing lending in general but skewing said lending toward religiously similar borrowers. Our findings speak to the important frictions associated with religious differences in individual philanthropy; they point to the role of governmental policy vis-à-vis religious tolerance as a determinant of citizens’ global philanthropic behavior, and they highlight design implications for online platforms with an eye toward managing religious bias.

No easy fix for belief bias during syllogistic reasoning?

ABSTRACT Although erroneous intuitions often lead human thinking astray, recent studies suggest that single-shot interventions in which the underlying problem logic is clarified can easily remediate this bias. Because previous work typically focused on numerical problems, we tested here the generalizability to the infamous non-numerical belief bias during syllogistic reasoning. Unfortunately, results of 3 studies show that the effect is less clear. Although we succeeded in boosting performance for a minority of reasoners, reasoners who remained biased also tended to show a worse performance after training. We conclude that more work is needed to optimise the single-shot “easy fix” intervention approach to remediate belief bias during syllogistic reasoning.

Hedonism as a motive for information search: biased information-seeking leads to biased beliefs

Confirmation bias in information-search contributes to the formation of polarized echo-chambers of beliefs. However, the role of valence on information source selection remains poorly understood. In Experiment 1, participants won financial rewards depending on the outcomes of a set of lotteries. They were not shown these outcomes, but instead could choose to view a prediction of each lottery outcome made by one of two sources. Before choosing their favoured source, participants were first shown a series of example predictions made by each. The sources systematically varied in the accuracy and positivity (i.e., how often they predicted a win) of their predictions. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling indicated that both source accuracy and positivity impacted participants’ choices. Importantly, those that viewed more positively-biased information believed that they had won more often and had higher confidence in those beliefs. In Experiment 2, we directly assessed the effect of positivity on the perceived credibility of a source. In each trial, participants watched a single source making a series of predictions of lottery outcomes and rated the strength of their beliefs in each source. Interestingly, positively-biased sources were not seen as more credible. Together, these findings suggest that positively-biased information is sought partly due to the desirable emotional state it induces rather than having enhanced perceived credibility. Information sought on this basis nevertheless produced consequential biased beliefs about the world-state, highlighting a potentially key role for hedonic preferences in information selection and subsequent belief formation.

Analysis of Religious Bias among Christian Students in Science

AbstractChristians are notably underrepresented in science in part due to long‐standing public perceptions of science‐religion incompatibility and antireligious bias in science. This research explores whether undergraduates at a Christian university perceive and impose anti‐Christian cultural stigma in science. Survey results from 126 biology students revealed that though students generally perceived the culture of science to be anti‐Christian, they perceived Christians to have equal opportunities for scientific achievement. Results from a quasi‐experimental audit study, in which students evaluated one of two profiles for mock prospective Ph.D. applicants (Christian or undisclosed faith) showed that students did not project anti‐Christian stereotypes in terms of competence, hireability, or likeability, but showed some evidence of pro‐Christian favorability. Together, this study suggests that the affirmational community of a Christian University may alleviate some negative impacts of anti‐Christian stereotypes in academic biology, even as students perceive discrimination against Christians in science and atheists as more scientifically competent.

Controlling Behavior, Sex Bias and Coaching Success in Japanese Track and Field.

Coaching athletes is a complex and lengthy process. Recently, attention has been given to coaches over-controlling behavior toward the athletes' personal lives and possible sex bias, but the impact of these behaviors on coaching success is unclear. An anonymous survey was answered by 412 track and field coaches (male: 369; female: 43), comprising questions regarding controlling behaviors, sex bias, and personal background. A Chi-square test and logistic regression were performed to determine the factors related to the coach's characteristics and their success in coaching athletes (to national vs. non-national level). The results showed that controlling behaviors and sex-bias-related beliefs were present. The coaches who coached national-level athletes were more likely to be older, more experienced, and were national level athletes themselves. More national-level coaches reported controlling behaviors but fewer held sex bias beliefs than the non-national level coaches. However, the strength of these beliefs (scores for controlling behavior and sex bias) was not related to the coaching success.

Mental healthcare for young and adolescent LGBTQ+ individuals in the Indian subcontinent.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a significant change in the way healthcare is dispensed. During the pandemic, healthcare inequities were experienced by various sections of society, based on gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The LGBTQ individuals were also affected by this inequity. There is a lack of information on this topic especially in the developing countries. Hence this issue requires further exploration and understanding. Previous literature briefly explored the mental, physical, and emotional turmoil faced by the LGBTQ community on a regular basis. They feared rejection by family and friends, bullying, physical assault, and religious biases. These issues prevented them from publicly speaking about their sexual orientation thereby making it difficult to collect reliable data. Although they require medical and psychological treatment, they are afraid to ask for help and access healthcare and mental health services. Being mindful of these difficulties, this article explores the various underlying causes of the mental health problems faced by LGBTQ individuals, especially, in the Indian subcontinent. The article also examines the status of healthcare services available to Indian sexual minorities and provides recommendations about possible remedial measures to ensure the well-being of LGBTQ individuals.

Thinking dispositions moderate adolescent readers’ mental models of conflicting sport information

Readers’ prior beliefs can slant their mental models of conflicting information in favor of perspectives and standpoints that support them. Previous research suggests that reader's (meta-)cognitive resources might protect them from belief biases in the mental representation of controversial textual information. Since critical thinking dispositions involve the willingness to analyze evidence independently of beliefs and are associated with the propensity to seek new evidence, they are likely to protect readers from the biasing effects of beliefs. This study, therefore, investigated how critical thinking dispositions remediate belief biases in adolescents’ mental models of controversial information. Eighty-five adolescent readers read two documents that presented arguments for and against their favourite football teams. The strength of their situationmodel and text-base representations were measured by a recognition task. The results revealed that adolescents’ mental models of the controversial sport information were slanted towards the text that communicated belief-congruent information. The results further revealed that critical thinking dispositions moderated the effects of prior beliefs on the mental models that adolescent readers constructed of the conflicting information. The findings provide support for the 2-step model of validation, according to which critical thinking dispositions can prevent belief biases by fostering elaborative processing of belief-inconsistent information.

Improving GNSS Spoofing Awareness in Smartphones via Statistical Processing of Raw Measurements

Due to the low received power of Global Navigation Satellite Signals (GNSS), the performance of GNSS receivers can be disrupted by anthropogenic radio frequency interferences, with intentional jamming and spoofing activities being among the most critical threats. It is reported in the literature that modern, GNSS-equipped Android smartphones are generally resistant to simplistic spoofing, and many recent contributions support such a biased belief. In this paper, we present the results of a test campaign designed to further stress the resilience of such devices to simplistic spoofing attacks and highlight their actual vulnerability. We then propose an effective spoofing detection technique, that exploits the spatial and temporal correlation of the counterfeit signals by leveraging the statistical analysis of raw GNSS measurements. By not requiring access to the low signal processing level of the GNSS id=Greceiverprocessor, the proposed solution applies to id=Gany id=Gdevicedevices embedding a GNSS id=Greceiver that providesunit and providing output raw GNSS measurements, such as current Android smartphones. Vulnerability analysis and validation of the proposed technique were conducted in a controlled environment by transmitting realistic, id=Gcounterfeitfake Global Positioning System id=R1(GPS) L1/CA navigation signals to a variety of Android smartphones id=Gembedding also differentand embedded GNSS chipsets. id=GIn the process, id=GWWe show that, under proper conditions, the devices were vulnerable to the attacks and that the effects were visible through their raw measurements, i.e., Carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N0), pseudo-range measurements, and position estimates. In particular, the study demonstrates that cross-correlation between id=Gthe C/N0 time series provided by each device id=Gforabout different GNSS satellites id=Gincreasesincrease under spoofing conditions, thus constituting id=Gan effectivea proper metric to detect the attack within a few seconds.

The Encyclopaedic Aspect of Bihār al-Anwār (Part II)

ABSTRACT: This article examines the encyclopaedic nature of the book Bihār al-Anwār , compiled by Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī in the 17th century Safavid era. It first provides context on the tradition of compiling encyclopaedic works covering various sciences in Islamic civilisation. It then focuses on encyclopaedic writing during the Safavid period, including examples like Lisān al-Khawāṣ by Āqā Raḍī Qazwīnī. The article argues that the Ṣafavīd era saw a shift towards grounding all knowledge in religious texts and Shi'a narrations, which influenced Majlisī's approach in Bihār al-Anwār . While some scholars tried to interpret natural sciences through narrations, Majlisī's views on whether all sciences derived from religious sources are unclear. The text examines how Majlisī approached subjects like astrology and medicine by trying to align them with narrations while acknowledging conflicts with religion at times. Overall, Bihār al-Anwār aimed to present a comprehensive Shi'a perspective on human knowledge and the world derived from religious sources like the Qur'an and Hadith . The encyclopaedic nature stemmed from this ambition to cover various subjects through a religious lens.

Think About It: Promoting Physical Activity With a Mobile App With a Theory-Based Approach

Currently, people’s highly busy lifestyles and sedentary behavior contribute negatively to multiple health factors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the different sanitary measures, such as limited mobility and the closing of gyms and sports centers, have contributed to limited physical activity. In this context, there are several apps to enhance physical activity across all mobile stores with an emphasis on mobile sensing. However, the use of a formal theory incorporated into the app development and interventions is less evident. A theory-based approach contributes to understanding the reasons and situations in which an intervention strategy can have an impact. The present work considers the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which addresses persuasion and attitude change. Can we develop a persuasive app that promotes physical activity based on contemporary attitudes and behavioral change theories? We developed a mobile application for Android OS. Then, 63 participants tested it, and were encouraged to think of ideas or arguments in favor of doing physical activity in a high elaboration task. A mediation analysis was done, with results showing that attitudes partially mediate the association between thought and physical activity. Participants’ thoughts were seen to be positively correlated with their attitudes; and, in turn, participants’ attitudes were correlated with their behavioral intention (to do physical activity). This suggests that a theory-based approach for the active production of biased beliefs is effective when designing an app that encourages positive attitudes toward physical activity.

The role of performance beliefs in the difference between self-report and behavioural measures of attentional control and their relationship with anxiety

While empirical findings closely link poor attentional control with elevated anxiety, this relationship is more consistently evident and stronger when attentional control is measured through self-report than through behaviour. One possible explanation for these diverging findings is that people lack insight into their attentional control capabilities, and people with elevated anxiety hold more negative beliefs about their level of attentional control, resulting in lower self-reported levels of attentional control. In two studies, participants (N = 78 and N = 207) completed the attentional control scale, the attentional network test (ANT), a questionnaire measuring beliefs about attentional control in the ANT, and a measure of anxiety. In both studies, no significant associations were present between beliefs about attentional control in the ANT and participants' performance on the ANT, suggesting a lack of insight in attentional control capabilities. Both studies further demonstrated that only beliefs about attentional control but not performance in the ANT were related to self-reported attentional control and anxiety. We thus show that evidence supporting the relationship between self-reported attentional control and anxiety is driven by biased beliefs about ability to control attention in people with heightened anxiety, and not by behavioural indices of attentional control.

Beliefs about minority representation in policing and support for diversification

Diversification of police forces is widely promoted as a reform for reducing racial disparities in police-civilian interactions and increasing police legitimacy. Despite these potential benefits, nearly every municipal police department in the United States remains predominately White and male. Here, we investigate whether the scale and persistence of minority underrepresentation in policing might partly be explained by a lack of support for diversification among voters and current police officers. Across two studies (N = 2, 661) sampling the US adult population and residents from a city with one of the least representative police forces in the country, individuals significantly overestimate officer diversity at both the local and national levels. We find that correcting these biased beliefs with accurate information reduces trust in police and increases support for hiring new officers from underrepresented groups. In the municipal sample, these corrections also cause an increase in residents' willingness to vote for reforms to diversify their majority White police department. Additional paired decision-making experiments (N = 1, 663) conducted on these residents and current police officers demonstrate that both prefer hiring new officers from currently underrepresented groups, independent of civil service exam performance and other hiring criteria. Overall, these results suggest that attitudes among voters and police officers are unlikely to pose a major barrier to diversity reforms.

If the discrepancy between expectations and actual information is too large, expectation change decreases – A replication study

Background and objectivesMental disorders have been related to aberrations in using novel positive information to revise established negative beliefs. Previous research used to make a binary distinction between belief-confirming vs. -disconfirming information, but recently it has been examined how varying levels of positive information is used to update beliefs. The present study aimed to replicate a recent finding suggesting that positive information that deviates to a large extent from people's prior expectations raises doubts about the credibility of new information and therefore hardly leads to change in expectations. MethodsIn a heterogenous sample (N = 144), participants were provided with slightly positive, moderately positive, or extremely positive information in relation to their prior expectations about other people's behaviour. ResultsReplicating previous research, the present study found that expectation change was greatest for moderately positive information. It also provided evidence for a possible mechanism underlying the inverse U-shaped relationship between the positivity of new information and change in expectations: Extremely positive information was devalued through defensive cognitive strategies, referred to as cognitive immunisation. LimitationsUnlike previous research, the belief update task used in this study did not show any association with depressive symptoms, so it is questionable how suitable it is to study biased belief updating in depression. ConclusionsUnlike traditional learning models, the present results suggest a tipping point above which the discrepancy between expectation and outcome is suspiciously large, so that the degree of expectation change decreases.