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Summary AQA Psychology: obedience: legitimacy of authority
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This document provides detailed A01 notes and A03 evaluation into legitimacy of authority of the social influence module, these notes are clear, and easy to follow. The A03 contains a deep explanation of both strengths and limitations to the theory/study, along with evidential support or criticis...

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  • October 26, 2022
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Explanations of obedience: Discuss the legitimacy of authority
Definition: Legitimacy of authority is when a person recognises their own and others position
within the social hierarchy. The authority figure then recognises their right to issue demands.

 The suggestion is that we are more likely to obey someone who perceive to have higher
authority and status than us in the social hierarchy.

Evidence of authority: Legitimacy is increased by visible symbols of authority.

Uniform: Bickman investigated the power of uniform in a field experiment each wore either a
security guard, milk man or pedestrian clothes. Gave public orders e.g., to pick up litter. The guard
was obeyed 76% of times and the milkman and pedestrian significantly less. Results are likely due to
the state of legitimate authority and power that uniform can suggest.

Location: For authority to be legitimate it should occur within prestige institutional setting or system
e.g., the military. Milgram found that location affected obedience, in a Milgram variation where the
setting changed from Yale university to a ran down office block, obedience reduced to 47.5%.
Therefore, people are more obedient in settings that suggest a legitimacy of authority (for the
experimenter).

Location can also alter an individuals perceived legitimate authority in that it will change depending
on where they are for example, a teacher has authority over a student within the school
environment but not so much outside of it.

A03 Evaluation

Real life research support supports the idea of legitimate authority and how accepting this can
become dangerous. Tarnow researched aircraft accidents in America and found excessive
dependence on the captain’s authority, failing to question their actions by making the assumption
the captain could control the situation, this supports the explanation that legitimate authority can
generate high and quite obedience, and that this can have detrimental effects by not questioning
authority.

Counterpoint: However not all research supports the idea of a legitimacy of authority to cause
obedience. Rank and Jacobson found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed a doctor when ordered to give an
excessive dose of a drug to a patient, despite his highly perceived legitimacy of authority. This
suggests that obeying to someone based on their legitimacy of authority is not inevitable and can be
identified thus rejected.

Cultural differences: does explain them! Khilam and Mann found only 16% of Australian women
were fully obedient in a Milgram type study whereas Mantell found 85% obedience in Germans
(20% higher than the original) suggesting the explanation can suggest differences in attitudes
towards legitimate authority and how it effects their obedience. (Developed) though this simply
states differences it does not measure why there are cultural differences, therefore evidence for or
against the LA isn’t conclusive.

Is obedience dispositional? It is possible that obedience is dispositional not situational, alternative
explanation the authoritarian personality suggesting strict upbringing and strict awareness of their
social status, leads them to accept authority more and follow orders. This would explain why some
people obey and some do not when faced with authority indicators such as uniform.

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