It's Sunday morning and you've just woken up. After eating a delicious blini for breakfast you take a shower and get dressed. When you go to brush your teeth, however, you realise that you're out of toothpaste, so you head to the supermarket to replace it.

There are dozens of options and you want to try something new, but you can't make up your mind. You notice one toothpaste has a picture of a dentist wearing a white coat, so you pick it up and buy it, rationalising that since their is a dentist on the box, it must be good.

Congratulations! You've just fallen victim to the authority bias!

The Milgram experiment

Stanley Milgram conducted the now famous experiment in 1961 to study obedience towards authority figures.

In the experiment participants took the role of a teacher. They began by reading out word pairs to a learner, played by an actor, sitting in another room. The participant would then read out the first word of each pair and four possible answers. If the learner got the answer wrong, the teacher would administer an electric shock. Additionally, after each wrong answer the shock would increase by 15 volts.

As the voltage increased, so would the learners acted responses. If at any point the participant wanted to stop the experiment, the experimenter, sitting in the same room as the participant, would say the following in order:

1. Please continue
2. The experiment requires that you continue
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue
4. You have no other choice, you must go on

The experiment was halted if the participant still refused after the fourth response from the experimenter, or the maximum 450-volt shock was given three times in a row.

Even when participants show that they disagree with administering the shocks, when they authority figure tells them they must continue, they often do so.

In fact in the original experiment a massive 65% of participants administered the full 450-volt shock.

United Airlines flight 173

On December 28th, 1989, United Airlines flight 173 was making its approach into Portland International Airport when it experienced a landing gear abnormality.

The captain decided to enter a holding pattern so they could troubleshoot the problem. In spite of repeated hints from the first officer and engineer that the fuel supply was getting low, the captain continued to troubleshoot the landing gear problem.

Two crew members and eight passengers died from the 189 people on board.

Instead of questioning the decision of the captain, the flight crew yielded to his authority and let the plane run out of fuel, in spite of being aware it would happen.

What can we do about it?

Whenever you're about to make a decision, consider which authority figures might be trying to influence you. Concentrate on their arguments rather than their position, and don't be afraid to challenge the claims they make.

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Banner photo by Esther Max used under the CC-BY-2.0 license. Changes were made to the original.

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Other posts in the series:

• The lies we tell ourselves - the halo effect
• The lies we tell ourselves - the gambler's fallacy
• The lies we tell ourselves - the sunk cost fallacy
• The lies we tell ourselves - the framing effect
• The lies we tell ourselves - cognitive dissonance
• The lies we tell ourselves - confirmation bias

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