On the Descriptive Legitimacy of Status Differences

Despite the existence of a variety of mechanisms for assigning roles and building groups that have been established in laboratory experiments, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding the extent to which these mechanisms are perceived as legitimate. This empirical study examines four different mechanisms for inducing status differences with regard to their descriptive legitimacy and finds that a random classification is evaluated as the most legitimate mechanism. Conversely, the university entrance grade is evaluated as the least legitimate mechanism.Women perceive greater differences in legitimacy between the mechanisms.