People in power who are guilt-prone are less likely to be corrupt

Date:
June 26, 2023
Source:
University of California - Santa Barbara
Summary:
Guilt. It's a horrible feeling that causes us to question our worth
as human beings. But while it's something that induces sleepless
nights and stress-related physical symptoms in individuals,
for society at large, the tendency toward guilt might have some
benefits.


Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email

==========================================================================
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Guilt. It's a horrible feeling that causes us to question our worth as
human beings. But while it's something that induces sleepless nights and stress- related physical symptoms in individuals, for society at large,
the tendency toward guilt might have some benefits.

"People who are prone to feeling guilt in their everyday lives are less
likely to take bribes," said UC Santa Barbara psychology professor Hongbo
Yu, who specializes in how social emotions give rise to behaviors. He is a senior author of a paper that appears in the journal Social Psychological
and Personality Science.

In a study he conducted in collaboration with partners at East China
Normal University and Zhejiang Normal University, Yu looked at guilt
not as an episodic state -- such as how we feel after specific instances
in which we hurt someone -- but rather as a personality trait, in which
people tend to worry about the potential harm their actions cause.

"So I could be a person for whom it is really easy to feel guilt in
my everyday life," he explained, "while others might be less likely to
feel guilt, or have a higher bar for feeling that emotion." We all can probably intuit that anticipatory guilt might make us think twice before undertaking an action with potentially bad consequences for others. But
what has been less clear is how this crucial morality-related personality
trait affects decision makers in situations involving temptation and incentives, balanced against potential harm to others.

"The question was whether the trait of guilt is associated with a lower probability of engaging in corrupt behavior," Yu said.

In their study, the researchers concentrated on bribery, an act in which
a person that typically has some level of power and influence is tempted
to act illegally or unethically in exchange for favors or gifts from
someone who wishes to use that influence unfairly for their gain.

In one of the researchers' online experiments, participants were asked
to fill out a questionnaire to record both demographic and personality information, and also their fairness concerns. They also participated
in one of two scenarios.

The first one put them into the role of an arbitrator with the power
to assign students grades. They were each paired with a "co-player,"
who, unbeknown to them, was fictitious. The co-players (in this case
the fictitious students who had been graded) would attempt to bribe
the participants to change their grades in exchange for a portion of
the reward the co-players would receive for passing the test above a
certain threshold.

The second scenario gave each participant 100 tokens, ostensibly to donate
to a children's charity, such as UNICEF. Then co-players attempted to
bribe the participants to give them the money, in exchange for keeping
a certain portion for themselves.

"So the structure of the two scenarios is similar, but the critical
difference is that in the charitable donation scenario, the victim is
obvious," Yu said.

"The first scenario is more of just a violation of moral principle."
As would be expected, participants who scored high in guilt-proneness
(from the questionnaire) were less likely to accept a bribe in either
of the two scenarios. The effect was more pronounced in the charitable
donation scenario.

"You know someone's going to get hurt," Yu said. "In the paper we
argue that when the victim is more salient, the association between the
guilt trait and corrupt behavior becomes stronger." Concern for others' suffering, they said, might play a significant role in how guilt-proneness influences bribe-taking behaviors.

This study joins a growing body of work that associates guilt-proneness
with fewer unethical decisions, such as cheating for personal gain
and counterproductive work behaviors. But it's important to note that
this study is correlational, Yu said. "We can't make a causal claim
that if we make people more guilt-prone, we will necessarily see less corruption. That needs more research." Indeed, the researchers say,
guilt proneness is not the only trait that might predict corrupt behaviors
(or lack of them), and it's worth studying how this trait, along with
other personality traits, might "serve as a reliable anti- corruption
predictor in personnel selection," such as when choosing people for
leadership positions or for high-stakes jobs.

"We can't claim causality, but we can leverage the association between
the guilt trait and the lower likelihood of corruption to make us more confident about their integrity," Yu said. "Maybe that's something we
can apply to the real world."
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Mind_&_Brain
# Behavior # Borderline_Personality_Disorder #
Consumer_Behavior # Anger_Management
o Science_&_Society
# Surveillance # STEM_Education # Popular_Culture #
Education_and_Employment
* RELATED_TERMS
o Procrastination o Society o Emotion o PMS o Sports o
Post-traumatic_stress_disorder o Altruism o Inferiority_complex

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Santa_Barbara. Original written by Sonia
Fernandez. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yang Hu, Shiwei Qiu, Gaotong Wang, Kui Liu, Weijian Li, Hongbo Yu,
Xiaolin Zhou. Are Guilt-Prone Power-Holders Less Corrupt? Evidence
From Two Online Experiments. Social Psychological and Personality
Science, 2023; 194855062311685 DOI: 10.1177/19485506231168515 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230626163232.htm

--- up 1 year, 17 weeks, 10 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)