Are public service motivation and social value orientation related to bribery? Evidence from a developing country

De Waele [8] and collaborators found that public service motivation (PSM) weakly constrains bribery, whereas social value orientation (SVO) paradoxically increases the willingness to bribe in three Western European student samples. This study tests whether these patterns generalize to a high-corruption context in a Latin American country. Given that PSM may operate differently in Latin America, we examined the relationship between PSM, SVO, and willingness to commit bribery in a sample of 321 university students in Ecuador. We replicated the original data analysis strategy. As in the European study, subdimensions of PSM show moderate intercorrelations and strong loadings on a composite score, and SVO scores are comparably high. However, while the European study found a positive link between SVO and bribery, we observe a reversed or null relationship in Ecuador. PSM shows no predictive power over bribery willingness. Across both studies, gender is the most robust predictor, as women consistently display a lower willingness to bribe across all items. Furthermore, the expected white–gray–black vignette gradient observed in Europe is absent in Ecuador, with emotional appeals eliciting the most permissive responses. Yet, no systematic variation is observed across scenarios.