The Effect of Prescriptive Norms and Negative Externalities on Bribery Decisions

Corruption is a welfare issue worldwide, but it is difficult to study because of its secret nature. We here did a lab economic experiment on bribery to study different compliance mechanisms through which people might be deterred from corruption. We focused on two elements of norms which people might respond to: information about the function of the norm (to avoid harm to third parties) and information about the prescriptive content of the norm (rights and duties). We show that information about both negative externalities of bribery and prescriptive norms are effective deterrents, and that bribe offers and acceptances are most discouraged with their synergic interaction. We find that participants followed prescriptive information, even when it was inefficient to do so, and implied choosing against their material self-interest (by rejecting a bribe) and not reciprocating bribe offers. Such compliance regardless of costs to the self and to others suggests a rule-based "mindless" process, like a normative heuristic. We conclude by highlighting the relevance of these findings as behavioral insights in the elaboration of strategies to combat corruption and norm transgressions