In this article we show that perceptions of corruption and the experience of bribery are related theoretically and empirically at the individual level, although the magnitude of this association relies on two context variables, country-level corruption and press freedom. For that purpose, we propose a sociological approach to understand how people form “mental images” of corruption beyond (as well as based on) their personal experience of bribery. We test its main implications using a cross-national approach based on ISSP's 2016 Role of Government module and the national-level predictors suggested by our theoretical framework and the specialized literature. Using multilevel models, we find that the generalized perception of corruption is associated with the personal experience of bribery and that this association is stronger in countries where corruption is relatively absent and press freedom is high, i.e., developed countries, and is weaker otherwise, i.e., developing countries.

中文翻译：

---

腐败的经验和认知：34 个社会的比较研究

在本文中，我们表明对腐败的看法和受贿经历在理论和经验上在个人层面是相关的，尽管这种关联的程度取决于两个背景变量，国家层面的腐败和新闻自由。为此，我们提出了一种社会学方法来理解人们如何形成超越（以及基于）他们个人贿赂经历的腐败“心理形象”。我们使用基于 ISSP 2016 年政府角色模块以及我们的理论框架和专业文献建议的国家级预测变量的跨国方法来测试其主要含义。使用多层次模型，