Assessing Indonesian Youth Acceptance of Corruption: Applying the Stimulus-Organism-Response Framework

Abstract

Corruption is one of the old problems facing the Indonesian government to date. The Covid-19 pandemic has not reduced corrupt behaviour in Indonesia. In fact, state officials in Indonesia were arrested for corruption in providing government social assistance to communities affected by this pandemic. Based on this phenomenon, this study aims to predict corruption acceptance behaviour using a stimulus-organism-response framework. The research focuses on youth because youth are future adults who will be active in business, politics, community activities, and others. A total of 246 youth was respondents in this study. Judgmental sampling was applied in this study and questionnaires were distributed online. The data was then analysed using structural equation modelling. The results of the analysis show that 4 of the 8 research hypotheses are supported. The four hypotheses supported are that anti-social media exposure has a negative relationship with personal values of materialism and materialism has a positive relationship with acceptance of corruption. The results of the analysis also show that pro social media exposure has a positive relationship with religious involvement. Furthermore, religious involvement has a negative relationship with acceptance of corruption. Limitations and suggestions for further research are also presented in this paper.