AO1 - Legitimacy of Authority

• People in positions of legitimate authority exercise social power over others.
• Legitimacy of authority can be seen in situational cues such as uniform.
• In one of Milgram's variations, where a person dressed in normal clothes was giving orders to participants, only 20% of participants obeyed, compared to 65% in the original study.
• Bickman (1974) investigated the power of uniform in a field experiment conducted in New York. He found that guards were obeyed on 76% of occasions, whereas a milkman and normal pedestrians were obeyed less (47% and 30% respectfully).