Abstract
Legitimacy is defined as perceived approvability of others' or one's own rights to decide public policies on the basis of some reasons or values. The present study assumed integrated administrations of a large region or local region as authority holding rights to decide the propriety of troublesome facility, and examined approval processes for legitimacy of these two authorities among people in located or outside area. Effects of troublesome facility on personal interests of people in located area are direct and visible, whereas those on interests of people in outside area are indirect and invisible. In case that information about interests of people in located or outside area are insufficient, people in outside area will consider propriety of troublesome facility as a public decision which is irrelevant to themselves, and to approve the legitimacy of people in located area. Therefore, they are hypothesized to evaluate the legitimacy of administrations of a local region more highly. On the other hand, they will estimate the legitimacy of administrations of a large region highly when the information about interests of people in located or outside area are sufficient, because they aid to acquire their own interests. The results of an experiment employing a scenario method supported the hypothesis. These results suggest that people in outside area holding sufficient information evoke elaborative processing in consideration of various cues concurrently.
