Understanding Corruption: A Complex Issue
Corruption is a pervasive problem that affects societies worldwide, and it’s particularly intriguing to explore why education fails to restrain it. Recent research conducted by social psychologists M. Urcia and A. Alva, behavioral economist V. Vivas, and accountant A. Espinosa from three Peruvian universities sheds light on this complex issue.
Source: cdn2.psychologytoday.com
The study, titled ‘Psychosocial factors associated with corrupt intentions among educated citizens,’ assesses the associations between political ideology, cynicism, personality, perceptions of ethics norms and political systems, and how these factors influence the response to corruption. The researchers aimed to understand why highly educated individuals tolerate unethical practices and rationalize corrupt acts.
Personality, Ideology, and Opportunity Shape Corrupt Intentions
The study reveals that personality type and ideology are the primary drivers of the intent to commit or fight corruption. Authoritarian individuals, in particular, are more prone to corruption due to their low level of moral indignation about corruption, which legitimizes secrecy and lack of transparency.
Additionally, individuals with antisocial traits, characterized by a lack of empathy, Machiavellianism, and subclinical psychopathy (also known as the ‘Dark Triad’), may use weak norms, moral laxity, and political distrust to normalize and justify corrupt intentions.
The Dark Triad’s Influence on Corruption
When individuals with these traits perceive that norms are deficient, they create informal or alternative norms or systematically transgress, but do not eliminate norms. They take advantage of deficient and corrupt political systems to achieve private aims, which leads to the demoralization of citizens and society.
The resulting social practices demoralize citizens and society, and the inequity and injustice arising from the malfunctioning normative system become rationalized as a means of survival in a corrupt environment. Political cynicism arises when the political system is dishonest, immoral, weak, inefficient, unfair, corrupt, limits citizen involvement, fails to represent citizens, is rife with scandals, or violent, and depending on media treatment of these issues, causes widespread distrust.
The Protective Effect of Education
Higher education does not invariably prevent corrupt intentions when systems are dysfunctional, and corruption is normalized. The researchers conclude that education without system legitimacy may be insufficient to curb corrupt intentions.
They explain that when corruption is systemic or has become normalized, even highly educated individuals are constantly faced with the dilemma of tolerate, accommodate, or resist transgressions. Promoting sophisticated moral reasoning at the university level would strengthen citizen commitment and interest and serve as a tool to monitor and control public officials.
How It Impacts Society
Alternative norms significantly skew public resources, undermine the rule of law, reduce meritocracy, and diminish public assets because policymakers favor their cronies over the public interest. Clientelism involves a longer-term, ongoing relationship and functions across multiple government agencies through prevarication.
Prevaricators skirt the core of an issue to deceive, conceal, or buy time, causing delegitimization and distrust in institutions through deliberate deviation from the truth, evasive speaking, dodging direct questions, or using vague and misleading language. This leads to public confusion and misperceptions of the normative system, such that corrupted systems may be perceived as effective and ethical; and well-functioning uncorrupted systems may be perceived as corrupt.
