This document presents a hypothesis that corruption behavior resulting from perceived survival insecurity can be explained by analogizing it to evolutionary physiology and fat storage mechanisms. The hypothesis is that, like humans' "thrifty genes" evolved to efficiently store fat during plentiful times for survival in scarce times, corruption may be triggered by insufficient resources creating a survival risk. The document outlines theories of human needs and motivations, discusses how food availability and metabolism relate to fat storage, and argues corruption weighs costs against benefits of ensuring future survival when payment is uncertain. It proposes corruption behavior could be influenced by similar physiological and psychological mechanisms as responses to scarce resources.

1. Preliminary Study on
Evolutionary Physiology as a
Deductive-NomologicalModel of
Corruption Behavior
Desh Raj Sonyok
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM

2. Outline
• Background
• Motivation
• Hypothesis
• Evolutionary physiology
• Analogy to corruption behavior
• Summary/Conclusion
• Reference

3. What is Corruptions?
Photo: Hamin Lee (http://www.canadianbusiness.com)

4. Defining Corruption
• No universal “one line” definition (Philps 1997)
• Moralists vs Revisionists
• Types: Public corruption and Private corruption
• Classification (World Bank):
• Bribery
• Nepotism
• Clientelism
• Embezzlement
• Fraud
• Extortion

5. Types of corruption in Nepal
• Corruption of budget: large scale, influence regional to national
development activities. Involvement of politician, top level
bureaucrats, contractor
• Corruption on revenue: involvement of low – high profile
bureaucrats, business owner, tax payers
• Service related corruption: bribery in offices, public right is denied
forcing them to pay money (bribe) in order to receive lawful service,
receiving unlawful service by bribing officials

6. History of Corruption: Timeless Phenomenon
• Adam, Eve and serpent
(Bible: Genesis 3, verses 1 – 12)
• The Arthashastra by Kautilya (~2400 yrs ago)
• Corruption is as old as organized human life and as old as government itself
(Klitgaard 1988)
• Corruption is a cross-temporal, crosss-ystemic and cross-cultural
phenomenon. It can exist under any form of government, in any country or
state, and at any time (Farrales 2005)

7. Motivation:
Nepal Corruption CPI Rank of Nepal
Perceptions Index (2013):
Rank: 116/177
Score: 31/100
90
121
117
131
143
121
154
146
139
116
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
2000 2005 2010 2015
Global Ranks
Year
Note: 0 (highly corrupt) to
100 (very clean)
*Below 50 points indicate
corrupted one
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Global Ranks

8. Fitness: Workout, Food, and Metabolism

9. Research Hypothesis and Objectives
• Corruption behavior resulting from need
base or perceived survival insecurity can
be explained with an analogy of fat
storage metabolism linked to evolutionary
physiology
• Main purpose of this presentation is to
offer some tentative suggestions on
evolutionary aspects of human
behavior/corruption behavior

10. Deductive Argument
Statement of
Initial Conditions
Statement of
Laws & Theories
Statement Describing
Explained Phenomena

11. Evolutionary Physiology: Organismal
Performance Paradigm
Garland and Carter (1994)

12. Evolutionary Physiology
• "thrifty" genotypes (Neel 1962)
• “feast–famine” conditions in the past 2.5 million years of
human paleolithic history
• thrifty genes are genes which enable individuals to efficiently collect
and process food to deposit fat during periods of food abundance
• advantageous for hunter-gatherer populations
• detrimental in the modern world due food abundance

13. Evolutionarily Programmed Biochemical Cycles
Figure: Mechanism of “thrifty gene” (Unger 2004)

14. Principle of fat loss
??? I eat only
twice a day
I eat 3 - 6 small
meals a day
• Higher eating frequency
was associated with lower
body weight (Kaisari et al
2013)
• Feed at regular intervals
send a signal to the body
that it doesn't have to
store calories

15. Need Theorists' Point of View (Maslow, 1954)
SELF -
ACTUALIZATION
SELF - ESTEEM
SOCIAL – BELONGING/LOVE
Friends, family, Spouse, Lover
SAFETY
Security, Stability, Freedom
PHYSIOLOGICAL
Food, water, shelter
Pursue inner talent
Creativity fulfillment
Achievement, Mastery
Recognition Respect

16. Psychoanalytic Perspective (Ogunleye, 2012)
• Humans are driven by two biological instincts (Freud, 1933):
• Life instincts: relates with the motive to survive against all odds and the
fulfillment of other bodily need
• Death instincts: a destructive force in all human beings
• Id, Ego and Superego

17. CPI vs GDP Per Capita
New Zealand Norway
Bhutan USA
Denmark
Saudi Arabia
Congo
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
3 or less: corrupt country
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000
CPI
GDP Per Capita ($)
(Transparency Int’l 2008)

18. Corruption Behavior: Triggering Factor
• Biologically human beings are built to be triggered into survival mode
• Insufficient/underpayment could be perceived as a survival risk
• Food availability, metabolism, and fat storage for future survival
• Due to uncertain future corrupt actors weigh benefits of corruption
against its costs

19. Summary/Conclusions
• Human behavior is a complex product of social, psychological, and
physiological interaction
• No previous study on effect of physiology on psychology relating to
corruption behavior
• Evolutionary physiology specifically food availability and fat
metabolism in human is analogous to corruption behavior in
developing countries associated with underpayment and survival
insecurity

20. Reference
• Crippen T (1992). “An evolutionary critique of cultural analysis in sociology.” Human Nature, Vol 3 (4), 379-
412
• Garland, T., Jr. and Carter P. A. (1994). “Evolutionary physiology.” Annual Review of Physiology 56:579-621
• Goel, R. K., & Rich, D. P. (1989). On the economic incentives for taking bribes. Public Choice, 61(3), 269–275.
• Klitgaard, R (1988). Controlling Corruption. Berkeley: University of California Press
• Kuzawa CW (2010). “Beyond feast-famine: brain evolution, human life history and the metabolic syndrome”,
In Evolutionary Anthropology, M Muehlenbein (ed), Cambridge University Press. pp. 518-527
• Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper and Row
• Neel JV (1962). "Diabetes Mellitus: A "Thrifty" Genotype Rendered Detrimental by "Progress"?". Am. J. Hum.
Genet. 14 (4): 353–62
• Ogunleye A.J. (2012). Corruption and Development in Nigeria A Psychological Perspective. Global Journal of
Human Social Science Arts &Humanit, Vol 12(9)
• Philp, M (1997). “Defining Political Corruption.” In Heywood, Paul (ed.) 1997. Political Corruption. Oxford:
Blackwell

21. Thank you