── ── Cognitive bias
Authority Bias
Authority bias is the automatic tendency to comply with directives from authority figures — often overriding one's own judgment, ethics, or evidence. It operates beneath conscious deliberation: people substitute the authority's judgment for their own rather than weighing it.
How it works
S1 — Identify: Authority (person/institution) · question/decision · authority signals (title, attire, credentials) · pressure to defer.
S2 — Expertise vs. positional: Actual track record on this question type? Positional (CEO, chair) or domain expertise (years operating here)? Would a peer expert agree?
S3 — Examine reasoning: Is the reasoning sound independent of who's stating it? Are logical gaps being filled by authority signals?
When to use it
- someone says 'should we trust the expert on this?', 'they're a professor/CEO/MD so they must be right', 'I don't want to push back on them', 'we deferred to the board and it blew up', or is evaluating a charismatic founder, assessing due diligence on a high-credential deal, or building a team where senior voices dominate
When not to use it
When the decision is routine and reversible, applying a formal method costs more than it returns.
Worked example
Milgram 1963 + Cialdini Systematization + Theranos/FTX
The Milgram 1963 experiment is the foundational empirical case. The contrast between psychologist prediction (1-2% compliance) and actual result (65%) is the canonical demonstration of how little of human behavior is governed by the rational, ethical, individual judgment that we believe we possess and that observers believe we possess. Under authority pressure, most ordinary adults will administer apparent severe harm — not because they are bad people, but because authority compliance is a deeply embedded social instinct.
Install this skill (free, MIT)
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skills