Legitimacy of authority

• Legitimacy of authority

  Societies are structured in a hierarchical way

  People in certain positions of power over us, and this is accepted throughout society, the power is legitimate

  A legitimate authority figure is usually recognised by uniform or an ID
• destructive authority

  Problems occur when legitimate authority becomes destructive

  Authority figures can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, like ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous

  This was obvious in Milgram study when the experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in a way that went against their consciences
• One strength of the legitimacy exclamation is it can explain cultural differences

  Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority

  In a milgram style study, 16% of Australian women shocked up to 450 volts, but 85% of German participants

  in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals, this reflects the way that different societies are structure and how children are raised to perceive authority
• One limitation is that legitimacy cannot explain disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted

  The nurses in Rank and Jacobson's study, Most of them were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure.

  a significant minority of Milgram's participants disobeyed despite recognising the Experimenter's scientific authority.

  This suggests that some people may just be more obedient than others. It is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure.