Whether Gender or Status Matters— The Influence of Instrumental and Relational Legitimacy on Obedience
Abstract
Obedience to authority is an essential field of psychological research. Previous research mainly examined the effects of subjects’ own attributes on obedience, but rarely examined the effects of authority’s nature. Starting with the legitimacy of authority, this study examined the effects of instrumental and relational legitimacy on subjects’ willingness to obey and predicted the existence of significant main effects and interactions between the two types of legitimacy. This result suggests that the authority’s legitimacy has a significant effect on willingness to obey, and when legitimacy is high, subjects will be more willing to obey. In addition, when judging the authority’s legitimacy, subjects will emphasize both instrumental and relational legitimacy, and will attach more importance to the authority’s instrumental legitimacy. Also, this study considered several possible results (no significant interaction or no effect found) and attempted to explain them. The assumptions of this research provide new insights into the research of obedience to authority and help researchers to better examine the effects of the nature of authority on obedience.
References
- Milgram, S. (1965). Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority. Human Relations, 18(1), 57–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872676501800105
- Blass, T. (2012). A cross-cultural comparison of studies of obedience using the Milgram paradigm: A review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6, 196–205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00417.x
- Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper & Row.
- Burger, J. M., Girgis, Z. M., & Manning, C. C. (2011). In Their Own Words: Explaining Obedience to Authority Through an Examination of Participants’ Comments. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(5), 460–466. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610397632
- Steve, J. G. (1971). Obediencia a la autoridad en dos situaciones: Con y sin responsabilidad propia. [Obedience to authority in two situations: With and without responsibility]. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 4, 439–445.
- Blass, T. (1999). The Milgram Paradigm After 35 Years: Some Things We Now Know About Obedience to Authority1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(5), 955–978. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb00134.x
- Tyler, T. R. (2021). Why People Obey the Law. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1j66769
- Brief, A. P., Dietz, J., Cohen, R. R., Pugh, S. D., & Vaslow, J. B. (2000). Just Doing Business: Modern Racism and Obedience to Authority as Explanations for Employment Discrimination. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81(1), 72–97. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1999.2867
- Papachristos, A. V., Meares, T. L., & Fagan, J. (2012). Why Do Criminals Obey the Law? The Influence of Legitimacy and Social Networks on Active Gun Offenders. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 102(2), 397–440. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23415238
- Tyler, T. R. (1997). The Psychology of Legitimacy: A Relational Perspective on Voluntary Deference to Authorities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(4), 323–345. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0104_4
- Darling, N., Cumsille, P., & Loreto Martínez, M. (2007). Adolescents’ as active agents in the socialization process: Legitimacy of parental authority and obligation to obey as predictors of obedience. Journal of Adolescence, 30(2), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2006.03.003
- Richard, F. D., Bond, C. F., & Stokes-Zoota, J. J. (2003). One Hundred Years of Social Psychology Quantitatively Described. Review of General Psychology, 7(4), 331–363. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.7.4.331