A Dual Process Social Psychological Model of Corrupt Intention and Attitudes Toward Corrupt People

Preliminary studies indicate that ideologies and worldviews are key in understanding the motivation behind corruption. Yet, there is no model seeking to explain corrupt intention that incorporates ideology and worldviews as predictors. Our objective was to propose a model integrating ideological factors (social dominance orientation [SDO] and right-wing authoritarianism [RWA]) and their underlying worldviews (competitive worldview beliefs [CWB] and dangerous worldview beliefs [DWB]) as predictors of corrupt intention and attitudes toward corrupt people and examine the model in the high corruption context of Brazil. For that purpose, preregistered hypotheses were tested across six studies. Results confirmed that corrupt intention is predicted by SDO but not RWA, while attitudes toward corrupt people are predicted by RWA but not SDO (Studies 1, 2, and 4). Replicating these findings cross-culturally, World Values Survey data (Study 3) indicated that corrupt intention is predicted by a proxy SDO index but not by a proxy RWA index. Experimentally increasing DWB amplified corrupt intention, but attitudes toward corrupt people remained unaffected (Study 5). Study 6 further confirmed the independence of corrupt intention and attitudes toward corrupt people, with corrupt intention primarily predicted by CWB and attitudes toward corrupt people primarily predicted by RWA. Hence, the first social psychological model that seeks to explain corruption integrating ideologies and worldviews was successfully proposed with implications for future research.