Predictors of Bribe-Taking: The Role of Bribe Size and Personality

• Main Authors: Marek A. Vranka, Štěpán Bahník
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-09-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: morality; corruption; bribe-taking; HEXACO; reaction times
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01511/full

Laboratory studies allow studying the predictors of bribe-taking in a controlled setting. However, presently used laboratory tasks often lack any connection to norm violation or invite participants to role-play. A new experimental task for studying the decision to take a bribe was designed in this study to overcome these problems by embedding the opportunity for bribe-taking in an unrelated task that participants perform. Using this new experimental task, we found that refraining from harming a third party by taking a bribe was associated with lower offered bribes and higher scores of the participants on the honesty-humility scale from the HEXACO personality inventory. A trial-level analysis showed that response times were longer for trials with bribes and even longer for trials in which bribes were accepted. These results suggest that taking a bribe may require overcoming automatic honest response and support the validity of the honesty-humility scale in predicting moral behavior.