It's Not My Fault! The Psychodynamic Process of Corruption Convicts
Yi-Ming Yu*
Abstract
Corruption has been common throughout history until now, and its damage to society and countries worldwide has been immeasurable. With the development of democracy, the issue of corruption has increasingly received attention, and every country has been dedicated to fighting corruption. The government of Taiwan was no exception, establishing the Agency Against Corruption, which aims to promote ethics and integrity and facilitate administrative transparency. However, most studies on corruption have, focused on the institutional and structural backgrounds and few have probed corruption from the perspective of the psychological processes of those found guilty of corruption.
Therefore, this study adopts the perspective of cognitive dissonance to examine a case of an individual convicted of corruption. The results show that the person experienced cognitive dissonance in the initial stage. To mitigate the psychological pressure from cognitive dissonance, people convicted of corruption attempt to adjust their thoughts to ameliorate the pressure of corrupt behavior, which was used by the individual investigated in the study to rationalize of corruption.
Keywords: corruption, cognitive dissonance, psychodynamic process, embezzler, moral disengagement
* Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, National Defense University, Taiwan.
email: yuimingtw@gmail.com.