Project description DEENESFRITPL Getting to the bottom of corruption Corruption is harmful to the collective, even though it may be cooperative from the perspective of its participants who engage in dishonest and fraudulent activities. Developmental psychology has explored the psychological origins of desirable cooperation. What about the developmental origins of corruption? The EU-funded ORIGINSOFCORRUPTION project will search for the answer by examining whether cheating, strategic ignorance and unequal norm enforcement – three paradigmatic corrupt behaviours – are more likely to occur in key contexts of cooperative decision-making (mutualistic collaboration, reciprocity and in-group cooperation) than in analogous control contexts. To study the role of cultural influences, the project will also look at collaborative cheating in cross-cultural experiments with children from modern industrialised and traditional small-scale societies. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Cooperation is at the core of humanity’s greatest achievements but its negative consequences have hardly been considered. Specifically, everyday corruption, while being immensely harmful to the collective, is often distinctly cooperative from the perspective of its participants (e.g. exchanging bribes, insider trading). What are the psychological origins of such corrupt behaviors and can they be traced back to fundamental aspects of human psychology? In the past, developmental psychology has been critical for revealing how particular social-cognitive capacities enable the participation in socially desirable cooperation. By contrast, little research has explored if the same capacities are also implicated in the emergence of corruption. The current project will fill this gap by studying the developmental origins of corruption. For this purpose, I will examine if three paradigmatic corrupt behaviors – cheating, strategic ignorance, and unequal norm enforcement – are more likely to occur in key contexts of cooperative decision-making (mutualistic collaboration, reciprocity, and ingroup cooperation) than in analogous control contexts. Developmentally, this tendency is expected to increase from age 4 to 7 as children’s cooperative capacities in these contexts gain in maturity. In addition, I will study cooperative cheating in two cross-cultural experiments with children from modern industrialized and traditional small-scale societies. This will reveal the role of cultural influences in the development of corruption and offer a stringent test of the hypothesis that social-cognitive skills involved in cooperation generally promote its emergence. Together, the project will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms supporting corruption and the role that our cooperative psychology plays in its development. Moreover, the results have strong potential to inform efforts aimed at facilitating ethical decision-making in children and adults alike. Fields of science social sciencessociologysocial issuescorruptionsocial sciencespsychologydevelopmental psychology Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2020-STG - ERC STARTING GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2020-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Host institution UNIVERSITAET LEIPZIG Net EU contribution € 1 498 442,00 Address RITTERSTRASSE 26 04109 Leipzig Germany See on map Region Sachsen Leipzig Leipzig Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 498 442,00 Beneficiaries (2) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITAET LEIPZIG Germany Net EU contribution € 1 498 442,00 Address RITTERSTRASSE 26 04109 Leipzig See on map Region Sachsen Leipzig Leipzig Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 498 442,00 MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV Participation ended Germany Net EU contribution € 0,00 Address HOFGARTENSTRASSE 8 80539 Munchen See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost No data
