Tom TYLER (1990) Why people obey the law (Yale University)
People obey the law if they believe it’s legitimate, not because they fear punishment–this is the startling conclusion of Tom Tyler’s classic study. Tyler suggests that lawmakers and law enforcers would do much better to make legal systems worthy of respect than to try to instill fear of punishment. He finds that people obey law primarily because they believe in respecting legitimate authority.
Tom R. Tyler is University Professor at New York University, teaching in the Psychology Department and the Law School. He studies the exercise of authority in groups, organizations, and societies. His many books include The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice, Social Justice in a Diverse Society, Cooperation in Groups,and Trust in the Law.
Introduction:
The first goal of this book is to contrast the instrumental and normative perspectives on why people follow the law. The instrumental perspective on the citizen underlies what is known as the deterrence literature: people are viewed as shaping their behavior to respond to changes in the tangible, immediate incentives and penalties associated with following the law—to judgments about the personal gains and losses resulting from different kinds of behavior. For example, increasing the severity and certainty of punishment for committing a crime has frequently been viewed as an effective way of reducing the rate at which the crime is committed. When policymakers think about how to obtain compliance, they often adopt implicitly an instrumental perspective.
Although the instrumental perspective has dominated recent examinations of citizens’ reactions to the law and legal authorities, this study explores compliance from a normative perspective. It is concerned with the influence of what people regard as just and moral as opposed to what is in their self-interest. It also examines the connection between normative commitment to legal authorities and law-abiding behavior. If people view compliance with the law as appropriate because of their attitudes about how they should behave, they will voluntarily assume the obligation to follow legal rules. They will feel personally committed to obeying the law, irrespective of whether they risk punishment for breaking the law. This normative commitment can involve personal morality or legitimacy. Normative commitment through personal morality means obeying a law because one feels the law is just; normative commitment through legitimacy means obeying a law because one feels that the authority enforcing the law has the right to dictate behavior.
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/tyler/lab/Chapters_1-4.pdf
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