Bias will always creep in............psychology...............................

History[edit]

The idea of contradicting interpretations has been around for a long time. It is studied in the context of understanding the nature of truth(s) and truth-telling in journalism. Valerie Alia has used the term "Rashomon effect" extensively since the late 1970s. She first published the term in an essay on the politics of journalism for Theaterwork Magazine in 1982. She further developed and used the term in her books, Media Ethics and Social Change,^[1] and in a chapter of Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World,^[2] which she authored; the book was co-edited by Valerie Alia, Brian Brennan and Barry Hoffmaster.

A useful demonstration of this principle in scientific understanding can be found in Karl G. Heider's work on ethnography.^[3] Heider used the term to refer to the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it.

It is named for Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, in which a murder involving four individuals is described in four mutually contradictory ways.^[4]

Plots in books, films, and other media may also be developed and described to use this as an underlying idea. It was also used in Citizen Kane.