Algorithmic bias in social research: A meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: Both the natural and the social sciences are currently facing a deep "reproducibility crisis". Two important factors in this crisis have been the selective reporting of results and methodological problems. In this article, we examine a fusion of these two factors. More specifically, we demonstrate that the uncritical import of Boolean optimization algorithms from electrical engineering into some areas of the social sciences in the late 1980s has induced algorithmic bias on a considerable scale over the last quarter century. Potentially affected are all studies that have used a method nowadays known as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Drawing on replication material for 215 peer-reviewed QCA articles from across 109 high-profile management, political science and sociology journals, w

SUBMITTER: Thiem A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7279593 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature