What is authority mapping?

Authority mapping is a concept in personal epistemology: You have unconsciously delegated cognitive authority to specific people, institutions, and information sources. Identifying these delegations is the first step to making them conscious choices.

Example: You realize you've spent three years reading a particular newsletter and treating every recommendation as settled truth — buying the books it suggests, adopting the frameworks it promotes, quoting its author in meetings. When you sit down to list the sources you defer to, this newsletter appears in five different decision domains. You never consciously chose this person as an authority. Repeated exposure did it for you.

This concept is part of Phase 31 (Self-Authority) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for self-authority.