Authority Bias

Authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy, credibility or weight to the opinion of an authority figure, and to be more likely to comply with that figure's instructions, regardless of the actual merit of the content involved. The psychologist Stanley Milgram's controversial obedience experiments, beginning in 1961, are widely cited as demonstrating the power of perceived authority, showing that a substantial proportion of ordinary participants were willing to administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to another person when instructed to do so by an experimenter in a position of authority. The bias has also been studied in more everyday contexts, including patient deference to medical professionals and juror deference to expert witness testimony, where it can lead people to discount their own independent judgment in favor of a perceived authority's view.