Perceived Corruption and Individuals’ Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Institutional Trust

Corruption degrades the quality of institutions, increases economic inequality and limits growth. Recent studies indicate that corruption is also associated with lower satisfaction with life. This research examines a potential explanation for this association and investigates the role of institutional trust in mediating the linkage between perceived corruption and satisfaction with life. Specifically, in two studies, we tested the novel hypothesises that perceived corruption affects life satisfaction indirectly by undermining individuals’ confidence in institutions. Study 1 (N = 251) involved an opportunity sample from the US. Study 2 (N = 9508) analysed data from the World Value Survey and involved a larger, representative sample of individuals from the MENA region. Across studies, mediation analyses provided evidence for the hypothesized indirect effect of perceived corruption on life satisfaction through institutional trust. Implications of the findings, limitations of the studies and directions for future research are discussed.

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Notes

To run analyses with software other than SPSS (Wilson et al. 2014), data from study 1 are available from the corresponding author upon request, whereas data from study 2 are available online at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp. Full annotation tables and SPSS scripts are available upon request. For more details about the PROCESS macro see: http://www.processmacro.org/index.html.

As a further check, we also tested the statistical significance of the indirect effect of institutional trust using the Sobel test (1982), obtaining the same results [b = −.14, SE = .044, z = −3.53, p = .004].

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Author information

1. Marco Ciziceno and Giovanni A. Travaglino have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Economic Sciences, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy Marco Ciziceno
2. Centre for the Study of Group Processes, School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Giovanni A. Travaglino
3. School of Humanities and Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China Giovanni A. Travaglino

1. Marco Ciziceno