Pavlov defined modern psychology by showing how stimulus-response reactions are created in the mind. He fed a dog repeatedly while ringing a bell at the same time. Later, he could ring the bell, and even in the absence of food, the dog would show physiological reactions of eating such as salivation.

What this means is that memories which are stored together can be contacted through external stimuli, and they will bring all related material to the surface and produce reactions similar to those stored in the memories.

Corruption works that way. Certain stimuli cause patterns of behavior to be expressed as developed reactions. Repetition causes the reactions to become more developed over time. The reactions of corruption always have the same characteristics.

The starting point is the assumption that prevailing over someone else would be advantageous. This assumption is visible in playing a game like monopoly. To win, you have to have an advantage over the other players. You create the advantage by buying more property, or some such thing, which allows you to dictate terms to your advantage and to the detriment of the other players.

This same process occurs wherever a conflict develops. There is a tendency to assume that if oneself could prevail over the other persons, he would win and be better off. If that assumption is put in place in one's mind and left there, it grows into the basic cause of corruption.

Built upon the desire to prevail are all other forms of corruption. Degrading others or their realities or property makes it easier to prevail. Gaining something from it is exploitation. Lying stifles the competing influences of others.

After the basic stimulus-response reactions were studied for some time in psychology, it was learned that positive reinforcements promote psychological conditioning. In a laboratory, food would often be used as the positive reinforcement. The way it works is that the desired response would yield the positive reinforcement, which would cause the same behavior pattern to be repeated over and over.

This pattern is called operant conditioning. It is used as the primary method of training animals. When the animals do what is desired by the trainer, they get a reward, usually as food, which causes the animal to repeat the behavior.

Corruption has a positive reinforcement which causes it to develop. The positive reinforcement is power. Acquiring power is the purpose of corruption, since power is needed to prevail over other persons. When succeeding, power is acquired, and its desirability causes the behavior to be repeated.

While it is true that there are a lot of negative reinforcements for corruption, they develop slowly, while the positive reinforcement is instantaneous. The psychological conditioning occurs almost instantaneously, while the delayed effects have little influence.

The reason for the difference is that the memories which are stored together must be acquired at the same time. The delayed memories are stored as separate memories. The stimuli only effect the memories which are stored together.

This means that the reward of power is stored in the same memories as the corrupt acts creating a positive reinforcement for repeating the behavior, while the negative effects are stored in different memories and do not influence the corrupt behavior on a stimulus-response basis, though they should have an analytical influence.

The problem is that the stimulus-response behavior is so automatic and subconscious that it escapes the awareness of the perpetrator of corruption. An example that is visible is trivial habits, like chewing finger nails. The person doing it generally does not realize that he is doing so.

But the response that gets stimulated with corruption is not a mechanical motion; it is a motive. It includes a set of related realities with attitudes and purposes embedded in them.

Jealousy is an example. It can be defined as a feeling of threat from the betterment of someone else. It gets developed from the need to prevail against the other person. If the other person has advantages, then prevailing is more difficult. Not wanting the other person to have such advantages is jealousy.

Jealousy is a motive, meaning a set of realities with the attitude that someone else must not be allowed to succeed and the purpose of preventing them from succeeding. Notice that it is built upon the more basic assumption that prevailing against someone would be advantageous.

The desire to prevail against someone is domination. This means that the desire to dominate is the most basic cause of corruption. Flowing from it are all other corruptions, which are interdependent.