Abstract:
Zero-tolerance for corruption is the propensity to reject the temptation to engage in
corruption in one’s own conducts and to consider the corrupt behaviour of other people as
ethically unacceptable. Reports have shown that corruption in Nigeria, especially among
Nigeria Customs Officers in the South-West, is endemic. Previous studies focused more
on punitive and administrative measures than to psychological strategies. This study,
therefore, was carried out to determine the effects of Values Clarification Training (VCT)
and Emotional Intelligence Training (EIT) on zero-tolerance for corruption among
customs officers in the South-West, Nigeria. The moderating effects of gender and
adversity quotient were also examined. The Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic and Albert
Bandura’s Social Learning theories were adopted as the framework.
The pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial
matrix was used. The multi-stage sampling procedure was used. The simple random
sampling technique was used to select three Area Commands (Oyo/Osun, Ogun and
Ondo/Ekiti) out of the 10 within the South-West. The participants were screened with
Corruption Propensity Scale (α=0.77) and those who scored high against the threshold
level of 55 were selected. The participants in the Area Commands were randomly
assigned to VCT (28), EIT (30) and control (25) groups. The instruments used were Zero tolerance for Corruption (α=0.78), Adversity Response Profile (α=0.77) scales and
instructional guides. The intervention lasted eight weeks. Data were analysed using
Analysis of covariance and Bonferonni Post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance.
The participants’ age was 25.00±0.82 years; 59.0% were male and 53.0% had high
adversity quotient. There was a significant main effect of treatment on zero-tolerance for
corruption among customs officers (F(2;80)= 21.85, partial η2= 0.38). The participants in
the EIT displayed the highest mean score (45.42), followed by those in VCT (34.08) and
the control (18.57) groups. There was a significant main effect of gender on zero tolerance for corruption (F(1;81)= 16.08, partial η2= 0.19). The female participants,
displayed a higher mean score (38.65) than their male counterparts (2.84). There was no
significant main effect of adversity quotient on zero-tolerance for corruption. There was a
significant interaction effect of treatment and gender (F(2;80)= 4.12, partial η2= 0.10) in
favour of female participants in EIT group. There was a significant interaction effect of
treatment and adversity quotient (F(2;80)= 4.56 partial η2= 0.11) in favour of participants
with high adversity quotient in EIT group. There was no significant interaction effect of
gender and adversity quotient on zero-tolerance for corruption. The three-way interaction
effect was not significant.
Values clarification and emotional intelligence training fostered zero-tolerance for
corruption among customs officers in the Nigeria Customs Service South-West, Nigeria
with emphasis on gender and adversity quotient. These psychological interventions
should be adopted for anti-corruption measures in Nigeria Customs Service.
