The First Regular LCSR Seminar of Autumn Semester–2024 Was Held

Ekaterina Nastina presented the report ‘Justifiability of Free Riding and Quality of Institutions: The Moderating Role of Personal Values and Culture’.

On October, 3, the new season of Regular Seminars at the R. F. Inglehart Laboratory for Comparative Social Research opened: Ekaterina Nastina, Deputy Head of the LCSR, introduced the report ‘Justifiability of Free Riding and Quality of Institutions: The Moderating Role of Personal Values and Culture.’

Ekaterina introduced her research on several causes that might account for cross-country variation in attitudes toward free riding. Among the factors considered were the quality of institutions and cultural characteristics of society. The results of the study revealed that people in countries with effective and fair institutions do tend to condemn free riders, as expected from the proposition of a cross-cultural moral universalism of primacy of honesty. In cases when citizens' rights are not protected, tax evasion, fare dodging, or claiming undeserved benefits are less likely to be condemned; however, the normative order can be upheld through other mechanisms, such as individual values and culture that prioritise respect for authority and low tolerance for deviance.