The Power of Authority | Weekbook #30

What makes influencers such a powerful marketing tool? Why do so many people blindly trust politicians? It's all thanks to authority bias, our tendency to be influenced by those who we perceive to be a figure of authority, irrespective of evidence.

Authority bias is one of many shortcuts hardwired into the human brain. These cognitive biases are useful tools that create efficiencies in our decision making, but can become problematic when trusted implicitly. They can also be manipulated and used as a tool to influence the decisions of others, which is the very tactic used by politicians, marketers and conspiracy theorists alike.

So how can it be avoided?

It starts by acknowledging your tendency to succumb to the influence of authority. When you bring awareness to the issue, you can begin to question the true intentions of why the authority figure is saying what they are. It is vital to question whether there is sufficient evidence to support the claim being made and to analyse whether the solution offered truly solves the problem at hand, or simply serves another purpose.

However, this is not to say that the opinion of experts should always be dismissed. There is value in learning from those who are more successful and many insights offered have genuine merit. Your objective is to simply arm yourself against those with an ulterior motive.

Beware authority bias.

Reading Notes

A collection of my favourite articles, Twitter threads and newsletters from this week, annotated with my highlights and thoughts.

• An Overview of Authority Bias

• Authority Bias in Recruitment.

• 0.1% of Ideas: High Agency Immigrant, Sam Altman's Email Test, Writing Advice

Try this Podcast

Ending Quote

"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority" - Benjamin Franklin.

Thumbnail credit: Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash