Attitudes of Russians and Chinese towards Corrupt Practices: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

On September 25, 2024, the seminar of the HSE Centre for Sociocultural Research “Culture Matters” was held. Within the framework of this seminar, Maksimenko Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Psychology of the Federal Social Sciences University, Chief Researcher of the Project and Educational Laboratory of Anti-Corruption Policy of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, spoke on the topic "Attitudes of Russians and Chinese to Corrupt Practices: Cross-Cultural Analysis".

The report was devoted to a comparative analysis of the attitudes of Russians and Chinese to corrupt practices (n = 275 Russians and 105 Chinese). The results of the study made it possible to identify both common features and culturally specific features of the perception of corruption. A comparative analysis of the data showed that deviant actions of officials or persons whose social role is strictly regulated in society and presupposes high moral qualities (judge, doctor, policeman, etc.) were assessed by respondents as highly corrupt in both samples.

Also, in both national groups, corrupt actions of holders of such social roles as flight attendant, teacher or coach, respondents gave lower ratings than to corrupt actions of officials, to whom higher moral demands were made. At the same time, respondents from China statistically reliably assessed hypothetical situations of "black corruption" as less corrupt, in contrast to Russians. "White corruption", on the contrary, was condemned by the Chinese significantly more than by Russians. The results obtained reflect the transcendental legitimization of power inherent in the Chinese mentality and the horizontal responsibility recorded in the phenomenon of "guanxi"