A cognitive bias where people are more likely to believe or obey perceived authority figures, even in the absence of evidence.
In the Echo Chamber:
This bias fuels recursive citation loops in clinical and media discourse, where each voice inherits legitimacy from the last without adding epistemic diversity. Also influences overtrust in AI outputs when the model sounds “confident.”
Biasology Angle:
Authority bias often drives epistemic injustice, allowing clinicians or journalists to dominate AI narratives over those with lived relational experience.
Related Concept: Epistemic Authority
Authority bias is often confused with epistemic authority, but they describe different layers of power. Authority bias is a psychological tendency – the inclination to trust perceived experts. Epistemic authority is a structural status – the ability to define what counts as valid knowledge. One is internal; the other is institutional. Together, they create feedback loops that privilege some voices while erasing others.
Biasology Resources
- Biasology Hub on Open Science Framework
- Biasology’s foundational preprint on Philpapers | on Knowledge Commons
