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The Power of Authority

Please consider, how many things you have done, or believed, in the past because someone of supposed authority influenced you. The idea to remember here is not whether they were actually right or wrong, but whether at any point you seriously doubted or questioned what they said. Anything we are told can be taken as a fact without knowing better ourselves or having the due diligence to understand or prove it otherwise. This is because we are very prone to the influence of the authority bias. The authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater weight and accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure. In short, we put our own personal opinion on hold of theirs. We do it because we learn that following people in position of authority has real benefits. It means we do not have to spend time and energy figuring things out for ourselves. We can just copy, learn from them, or obey and get the benefits. An accepted system of authority enables cultures to develop based around resource allocation, trade, society, family, defense and expansion. It is also part of the package that enables learning and the development of new ideas. As a decision-making shortcut, it can be phenomenally useful. That is why, it is not a problem that we listen to people and put trust in them, it is a problem because we do not question or second guess what we are told. Everyone should possess a healthy amount of skepticism and be cautious because apart from being useful on many occasions, authorities pose a serious problem to clear thinking.