International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2018

 

To pay or not to pay: affective and cognitive response to a bribe situation (Abstract)

 

C. Gopinath and Muntakim M. Choudhury

 

Bribery is ubiquitous in most developing countries. The negative impact of corruption on macro variables such as economic growth and foreign investments has been widely studied. In this study, we take a micro perspective to examine the effects of bribery on the individual’s emotions. We analysed two sets of post-event self-reports of individuals who bribed or did not bribe for government services in India to explore their cognitive and affective response. We identified the basic emotions revealed along with the justifications provided for their action when faced with a bribe situation. We find that affective response appears to dominate the reports of those who bribed, while cognitive response dominates those who did not bribe. Understanding individual emotional responses to corruption provides new avenues for researching the moral aspects of corruption and we derive implications for further research and practice.