When they go low, we go high? People’s Reactions to Political Corruption depend on Relativity Processes

人们对腐败和其他政治丑闻的反应似乎是不可预测的。有时，人们似乎对民选代表最无耻的不当行为无动于衷，而在另一些时候，他们突然愤怒地站起来。一方面，认为政治候选人不信守早先言论的看法可能会摧毁他们赢得选举的可能性，但一些政客尽管受到数十年的腐败指控，仍设法当选并再次当选。受到全球民主国家这种看似不一致的观察结果的启发，TP-5项目的目标是展示相对论和比较过程在解释人们对政治腐败丑闻的反应方面的核心作用。它在三个工作包中这样做，每个工作包都侧重于与腐败演变的一个特定阶段相关的一种特定类型的比较。在WP I中，我们关注的是自我政治家的比较。基于第一个资助期的调查结果，我们提出道德威胁可以解释为什么选民有时会投票给腐败的政治候选人。在WP II中，我们关注的是政治家与系统的比较。我们的目标是关注比较过程，以解释为什么听到关于政治腐败的消息会导致一些公民的政治激进主义和其他公民的政治冷漠。最后，在第三套工作中，我们将重点放在系统与公民的比较上。在这里，我们旨在展示听到有关腐败的消息如何会恶化公民之间的关系，导致不信任和自私--但也可能产生相反的效果，增加信任和利他主义。通过在所有三个项目中展示公民对政治腐败的反应从根本上是灵活的，我们认为这个项目提供了一个基本的见解，可以帮助公民以捍卫民主、参与政治激进主义和支持挑战者的战斗口号来应对政治腐败--同时保持与他们的共同公民的团结。

People’s reactions to cases of corruption and other political scandals appear unpredictable. Sometimes, people appear indifferent to the most shameless acts of misconduct by elected representatives, while at other times they suddenly rise up in anger. On the one hand, the perception that a political candidate is not true to earlier words can devastate their odds of winning elections, but some politicians have managed to be elected and re-elected despite decades of corruption charges. Inspired by such seemingly inconsistent observations in democracies across the globe, the objective of Project TP-5 is to demonstrate the central role of relativity and comparison processes to explain people’s reactions to political corruption scandals. It does so in three Work Packages that each focus on one specific type of comparison that is relevant to one specific stage of the evolution of corruption. In WP I we focus on self-politician comparisons. Building on the findings of the First Funding Period, we propose that a moral threat can explain why voters sometimes vote for corrupt political candidates. In WP II we focus on politician-system comparisons. We aim to focus on processes of comparison to explain why hearing about political corruption can lead to political activism among some citizens and political apathy among others. Finally, in Work Package III we focus on system-citizen comparisons. Here we aim to show how hearing about corruption can sour relations between citizens and lead to distrust and selfishness – but can also produce the opposite effects and increase trust and altruism. By demonstrating across all three projects that citizens’ reactions to political corruption are fundamentally flexible, we propose that this project offers a fundamental insight that can help citizens to react to political corruption with a battle-cry to defend democracy, engage in political activism, and support challengers—while maintaining solidarity with their co-citizens.