Bias in Partisan Spaces

[angus]

although they are biased, they are productive in an important, communicative way.

This isn't unique to your phenomenon, since bias is always productive in an important, communicative way.  If that were not the case, you wouldn't hear everyone bitching about bias all the time.

But to answer the question, doesn't the word "groupthink" already exist?  Or is that different than aggregate bias and I'm just to thick-headed to recognize this? 

[angus]

Chateau Lafite Rothschild, 1993.

I like it because even though the razor stubble on its legs are a bit off=putting, and its initial throaty assertiveness is cause for alarm, the full body feels like velvet to my tongue, and the mellow, oaky finish is absolutely divine. 

Now, you comment on wet rock and cedar.  (of course, I think "cedar?"  "wet rock?!"  Dude, wtf are you drinking, Mogen David?)

Then, another guy talks about the nose.  (The nose?!  Pour me a glass of wine and I drink it.  Nose?  Who has time to stop and smell the roses?)

All of the sudden, I am surrounded not only by presumed oenophiles, but by presumed oenophiles who have 900 dollars to spend on a bottle of wine, and who apparently spend it on the same wine that I spend my 900 dollars on. 

That about it?

If so, let's just call it a sort of groupthink that hasn't yet occurred to the wise, enlightened writers of wikipedia articles.  I know that it may surprise you to learn that the non-expert writers of non-edited, on-line sources of (mis)information, such as wikipedia, might not have thought of every possible application of the terms they write about, but it just may be possible that they have. 

Still, if you want to distinguish it from the garden-variety groupthink, then I think aggregate bias is as good a term as any.  And, yes, i've noticed the phenomenon.  Being a knuckle-dragger myself, I hadn't really distinguished it from garden-variety groupthink till you mentioned it here, but now that you have, I'd agree that its subtly different.  Actually, it's pretty original, too.  Not bad, old man.  Is this, by any chance, the subject of your dissertation?  Or related to it?