Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Pygmalian effect

Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Pygmalian effect

Subject: International reports

Context: Various concerns have been raised against the Corruption Perception Index which is not seen as an objective, region-specific dataset, rather it is a perception-based index.

Concept:

• India’s rank slipped to 86th in corruption perception index 2020 out of 180 countries.

About Corruption Perception Index

• First launched in 1995 by the Transparency International, the Index has been widely credited with putting the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda.
• Transparency International is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation dedicated to fighting corruption. It was founded in 1993 and is based in Berlin, Germany.
• The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people, uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

About Pygmalian effect

• The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area. Its name comes from the story of Pygmalion, a mythical Greek sculptor.
• Pygmalion carved a statue of a woman and then became enamored with it. Unable to love a human, Pygmalion appealed to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. She took pity and brought the statue to life. The couple married and went on to have a daughter, Paphos.