Case file
Authority Bias
- Filed under
- Not Enough Meaning
The charge
Authority bias is giving extra weight to a view because it comes from a person with status, title, or prestige.
How it operates
Deference lowers social risk and cognitive effort, so rank cues substitute for independent evidence review.
Logged incidents
- Incident 01
A team ships a CEO pet feature without user validation.
- Incident 02
A board accepts a consultant forecast unchallenged.
- Incident 03
A junior engineer stays quiet after the CTO dismisses a security concern.
What to watch for
Ask: If a junior person said this, would I find it equally convincing?
Recommended action
Use anonymous scoring, red-team review, or a devil's-advocate role before final decisions.
Known associates
- Group Attribution ErrorGroup attribution error is assuming what is true of one member is true of the whole group, or that…
- Ultimate Attribution ErrorUltimate attribution error is interpreting your own group's bad behavior as situational but another group's…
- StereotypingStereotyping is assigning traits or likely behavior to an individual based mainly on group membership.
- EssentialismEssentialism is believing categories of people or things have a deep fixed essence that explains how they…
- Functional FixednessFunctional fixedness is seeing an object, team, or process only in its usual role and missing other workable…
- Moral Credential EffectMoral credential effect is using a past moral act as psychological permission to behave less ethically later.
Source of record