This research considers important social institutions (e.g., the economic system, the level of industrialization, the level of social inequality, and the degree of religiosity) as determinants of individuals’ justifications to commit socially sanctioned behaviors. Using factor analyses on data from 32,734 individuals located in 27 nations, we find that regardless of country, all individuals group 23 socially sanctioned behaviors uniformly in three categories, which we term controversial behaviors (e.g., abortion), peccadilloes (e.g., keeping money found), and illegal behaviors (e.g., political assassinations). We used Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to test the country-level effects of the social institutions on individuals’ ability to justify these three types of sanctioned behaviors. The results confirm that the social institutions influence individuals’ justifications of sanctioned behaviors, above and beyond important individual-level control variables included in the HLM analyses. The economic system (degree of socialism) and the level of industrialization show positive effects on all three types of sanctioned behaviors. Social inequality has a positive effect on illegal behaviors and peccadilloes, but a negative effect on controversial behaviors. Religiosity affects illegal behaviors positively and controversial behaviors negatively with no significant influence on peccadilloes.
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