The Psychology of Legitimacy: A Relational Perspective on Voluntary Deference to Authorities

TLDR

People in organized groups internalize a sense of obligation to obey group rules and authorities, believing those rules legitimate and thus voluntarily complying. This review examines why individuals perceive authorities as legitimate and voluntarily defer to them across political, legal, managerial, educational, and family contexts. The authors contrast resource‑based instrumental theories with identification‑based relational theories to explain legitimacy. Evidence supports both relational and instrumental components of legitimacy, indicating that authorities gain legitimacy partly from social relationships with members and partly from instrumental benefits.

Abstract

People within organized groups often internalize their feelings of obligation to obey group rules and the decisions of group authorities. They believe that group authorities and rules are legitimate and, hence, entitled to be obeyed. Because of this belief, group members voluntarily accept and obey rules and decisions from group authorities. This review draws on evidence from studies of authorities in political, legal, managerial, educational, and family settings to explore why people view as legitimate and voluntarily defer to group authorities. Two theories about legitimacy are contrasted: resource-based theories, represented by instrumental models, and identification-based theories, represented by the relational model. The findings provide strong support for the existence of a relational component of legitimacy, suggesting that authorities draw an important part of their legitimacy from their social relationship with group members. The findings also show that there is an instrumental component to legitimacy. Hence, the psychology of legitimacy involves both instrumental and relational elements.