Legitimacy of authority

• Legitimacy theory is an explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we believe to have authority over us. This authority is legitimate by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.
• Kelman and Hamilton suggest three main factors to explain obedience:

  1. Legitimacy of the system
  2. Legitimacy of authority within the system
  3. Legitimacy of orders or demands given
• LOS: extent to which the body is a legitimate source of authority i.e government, army, school.
• LOAS: Power of individuals hold to give orders because of the position in the system. Therefore linked to status and hierarchy within a particular establishment.
• LODO: Order is perceived to be a legitimate area for the authority figure i.e teacher and hmwk vs teacher cleaning car.
• Destructive authority was shown in Milgram's study when the experimenter use prods to order the p's to behave in ways that went against their conscience.
• Strengths:

  Legitimacy theory is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience. Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which ppl are obedient to an authority figure. Kilham and Manh repeated Milgram's study ad found only 16% of Australian females were fully obedient. This reflects how different societies are structured in how they perceive an authority figure.
• Weakness:

  
  

  This theory cannot explain all disobedience as shown by the disobedient nurses in Rank's study where, in a hierarchy LOA is clear and accepted. It is possible that people have an innate tendency to obey/disobey which has a greater influence on behaviour rather than LOA.