AO3

• Legitimacy explanation


  A useful account of cultural differences in obedience
• Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority
• Obedience studies


  • Only 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450 volts in a Milgram-style study
  • 85% of German participants went all the way up to 450 volts in a Milgram-style study
• In some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals
• This reflects the ways that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures
• Disobedience in hierarchical authority structures


  • Nurses in Rank and Jacobson's study 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
• Some people may just be more (or less) obedient than others
• Innate tendencies to obey or disobey may have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure