Recently, I had a chance to test my ability to resist the urge to succumb to “authority bias” when my flight doctor came into the exam room without a mask and told me I didn’t need to wear a mask either. I would like to think as a pilot who has been trained to recognize the authority bias, that I would act confidently and courageously in the manner that I felt was best for myself, but then I probably would not be writing about it. When I do something against my nature and it leaves a weird feeling in my gut (the kind you get when your assistant wrestling coach wants to give you a massage), I tend to dwell on it. This is an attempt to figure out why I am such an idiot and full-disclosure, an explanation for my wife when she asks, “Why are you such an idiot?!” Short answer: the authority bias.
Wikipedia defines the “authority bias” as: the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by that opinion (the irony that my “authority” on authority bias is Wikipedia is not lost on me). We will often subvert our own will and decisions to the person who is the authority on the subject. This often works in our favor. We pay “experts” to master something and trust in their knowledge. Then we don’t have to become experts in whatever they are experts in, like medicine or foreign cars. This frees up extra brain cells that you can use for whatever you want, in my case, mostly cat videos on YouTube (in truth, at this point, I am a cat video expert “apprentice”.)
The big upside of authority bias comes with a dark and seedy downside. Psychological studies show that people will unquestioningly trust someone who is an “expert” in one field about something entirely unrelated to his field. Sadly, I have been the perpetrator of this. People will come up to me in my pilot uniform thinking, “That guy flies airplanes, he must be a doctor of airports.” So, they ask me something like, “Do you know where gate B3 is?” I never want to disappoint. So I confidently give them directions to their gate, which they inevitably accept, not knowing I only have a 20% chance of being right. I feel bad when I walk by B-3 and realize I pointed them in the wrong direction. Then I think, I gave them a good lesson on authority bias, they will thank me later.
The worse part of authority bias is that studies have shown people will defer to the authority, even if they intrinsically know, the authority is wrong. In the airlines, they have worked hard to break pilots of this ingrained psychological response to prevent accidents. If the first officer sees the captain doing something wrong, he is taught to bring it to the captain’s attention. It’s a delicate process of massaging the ego and taking the edge off by putting the concern in the form of a question: “Hey captain, I know you’re the f#&@in’ expert, but what the F$%# are you doing dumbsh#%?!”
Right now, we live in a time where we have to submit to authority. Since most people alive have not lived through a global pandemic, all we can do is trust the experts making educated guesses on what we should be doing (you should watch this video of a cat saying “hi” in a southern accent: https://youtu.be/Z-yJTjbswhw). Authority bias is why in this time COVID, everyone wears a mask: the experts say to, and it’s working. Numbers of new cases are dropping, and it’s attributed to the masks, the social distancing and the vaccine. This is the authority bias working in a good way: millions of people doing something they don’t want to do because they are submitting to the knowledge of the experts.
I don’t like wearing a mask. I hate wearing a mask. I hate the way my own breath smells. I hate having to annunciate. I hate the way my hillbilly neighbors don’t compliment my pretty mouth anymore. Yet, I wear it because the experts say to do it. It maybe virtue signaling, but I am fine with that. It’s also a tiny way, in the time where everything seems out of our hands, to show we are all pulling in the same direction. Also, I don’t like to be “that guy.” I mean if you are trying to quickly spot the person in a crowd who might do you harm, forget about the dude with tear-drop facial tattoos, look for “that guy” without a mask!
So now that we are up to speed on authority bias and also my inner dislike of having to wear a mask, what happens when a trained pilot is confronted with a true authority bias challenge: A medical doctor who seems to be contradicting all the other medical professionals in popular media? Does he go with his gut and just say, “Hey let’s put on masks fella!”? Find out in part two: “The Exam.” (If you are short on time, I’ll sum it up for you: Nope.)
