The propensity for corruption and personal resistance to corruption: comparative psychological characteristics

Introduction. Fighting corruption is the most important task of the government, its effective solution requires scholarly provision including the one from the aspect of psychology. It is essential to give scientific explanation of the most crucial inner reasons for corruptive behaviour and its oppositions concealed in psychological attributes of a person. Herewith, the aim of the article is to provide the scholarly arguments concerning the psychological essence and peculiarities of personal tendency to corruptive behaviour and personal resistance to corruption. Materials and Methods. The author used theoretical analysis based on the principle of determinism in psychology, personal structural functional and level approaches to interpretation of mental activity determining the man social behaviour. Standardized interview with projective method was employed to conduct a survey among corruptionists and officials who have not been brought to justice for corruption. Results and Discussion. The paper contains theoretical and applied grounds for psychological reasoning of salient distinctions of the person's propensity to commit a crime of corruption and its antipode - personal resistance to corruption. These phenomena are considered as specific structures of the person's psychological attributes realized in mental regulation of legally significant official behaviour. The centre of personal propensity to commit a crime of corruption comprises psychological properties which determine personal acceptance of such an act as the means to satisfy material or other personal interests. Comparative theoretical analysis and empirical research conducted enabled the author to reveal the psychological structure of personal anti-corruptive resistance as the complex of psychological properties which constitute it. Conclusions. The most productive way for scholarly explanation of psychological essence and differences of personal inclination to commit a crime of corruption and resistance to corruption is to reveal the structure and the content of psychological properties which are the most significant in these personal entities. The attributes revealing personal inclination to corruption reflect the prevailing subjective vision of such an act and its subject. The properties which constitute personal resistance to corruption have the opposite content and reflect the negative subjective vision of a corruptive act, its subject and consequences as well as the adequacy of the material requirements to the legal opportunities to meet them and readiness to resist criminogenic influences.