How strongly do higher investment premiums tempt people to invest in unethical assets, such as harmful ‘sin stocks’? We present two experimental studies ( = 1260) examining baseline willingness to invest in ‘sin stocks’ (without a premium), changes in investments as premiums increase, and how individual differences in deontological and utilitarian inclinations and dark personality traits impact baseline and changes to investments. We compare results to hypothetical models of sensitivity to higher returns: a) full resilience (to moral decay), where people increase investment in regular but not sin stocks with increasing premiums, b) partial resilience, where increasing premiums increases investment more slowly for sin than regular stocks, c) sin deduction: a flat baseline penalty for sin versus regular stocks resulting in similar sensitivity to increasing premiums, and d) decay, where investment differences in sin versus regular stocks reduce as premiums increase. On average, responses aligned best with the partial resilience model. Individual differences in morally-relevant traits moderated effects: most notably, people with higher deontological inclinations and lower dark traits showed greater resilience. However, 21–33% of participants exhibited full resilience, refusing to invest more in sin stocks even as premiums increased, which was more common in people with higher deontological inclinations and lower dark traits. These findings suggest that decisions to invest in sin stocks reflect the sensitivity to the sinfulness of the stock, which remains strong even after unethical investments are made more attractive. We conclude that increasing the economic reward of unethical investments does not crowd out moral concerns.

中文翻译：

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投资道德败坏


较高的投资溢价有多强烈地诱惑人们投资不道德的资产，例如有害的“罪恶股票”？我们提出了两项​​实验研究 (= 1260)，检验投资“罪恶股票”（无溢价）的基线意愿、溢价增加时的投资变化，以及义务论和功利主义倾向以及黑暗人格特质的个体差异如何影响基线和变化投资。我们将结果与对更高回报敏感度的假设模型进行比较：a）完全弹性（对道德败坏），即人们随着溢价的增加而增加对普通股票但非罪恶股票的投资，b）部分弹性，其中增加的溢价会更缓慢地增加对罪恶的投资与普通股票相比，c) 罪恶扣除：罪恶股票与普通股票相比的平坦基线惩罚，导致对溢价增加的相似敏感度，以及 d) 衰减，其中罪恶股票与普通股票的投资差异随着溢价的增加而减少。平均而言，响应与部分弹性模型最为一致。道德相关特征的个体差异调节了影响：最值得注意的是，具有较高义务论倾向和较低黑暗特征的人表现出更大的适应力。然而，21-33%的参与者表现出充分的弹性，即使溢价增加也拒绝对罪恶股票进行更多投资，这在义务论倾向较高和黑暗特征较低的人中更为常见。这些发现表明，投资罪恶股票的决定反映了对股票罪恶的敏感性，即使在不道德的投资变得更具吸引力之后，这种敏感性仍然很强。我们的结论是，增加不道德投资的经济回报并不能消除道德担忧。