{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,5]],"date-time":"2026-06-05T16:38:59Z","timestamp":1780677539822,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]],"date-time":"2023-01-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1673913600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Moral luck refers to whether an actor is morally praised or blamed for an action whose outcome they could not influence. In two studies, we investigated the behavioral importance of this phenomenon in the realm of investments, which has become increasingly subject to ethical evaluations. In our first online experiment, we examined whether people\u2019s moral evaluation of an investment decision depended on its arbitrary outcome and whether their interpretation of the nature of the decision was driven by this outcome. Our results showed that profitable investments were considered more moral than unprofitable investments. Moreover, profitable investments were labeled \u201cinvestments\u201d instead of \u201cspeculation\u201d or \u201cgambling\u201d more often than unprofitable ones. In our second study, we asked the subjects to assess investments independent of the outcome. After the outcome was announced, the subjects were given the opportunity to reflect and change their initial decision. The results show that people change the moral evaluation and label of investments when told that it had a bad outcome. This observation was stable across different investment contexts. These findings suggest that we must be careful with the increasing moralization of investment decisions and be sensitive to our cognitive biases.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0278677","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,18]],"date-time":"2023-01-18T04:00:14Z","timestamp":1674014414000},"page":"e0278677","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Moral luck in investment contexts: We consciously find unprofitable investments less moral"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8112-531X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Raphael","family":"Max","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Matthias","family":"Uhl","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0278677.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"241","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511621246.022","volume-title":"Moral luck: A postscript. In Making Sense of Humanity: And Other Philosophical Papers 1982\u20131993","author":"B. Williams","year":"1995"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref002","unstructured":"Nelkin, D. K. (2019). Moral Luck. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2019 Edition. Zalta, E. N. (ed.) [cited 2022 June 8] Available from: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/archives\/sum2019\/entries\/moral-luck\/."},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref003","volume-title":"Blind spots: Why we fail to do what\u2019s right and what to do about it","author":"M. H. Bazerman","year":"2012"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref004","first-page":"419","volume-title":"Does Attempted Murder Deserve Greater Punishment than Murder-Moral Luck and the Duty to Prevent Harm","author":"R. Christopher","year":"2004"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0278677.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"194","DOI":"10.1111\/1467-8608.00233","article-title":"Ethical investment: whose ethics, which investment?","volume":"10","author":"R. Sparkes","year":"2001","journal-title":"Business Ethics: A European Review"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref006","unstructured":"European Commission (2022). Sustainable Finance. Overview. [cited 2022 June 8] Available from: https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/info\/business-economy-euro\/banking-and-finance\/sustainable-finance_en."},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref007","unstructured":"USSIF. (2022) SRI Basics. What is Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing? The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. [cited 2022 June 8] Available from: https:\/\/www.ussif.org\/sribasics."},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref008","volume-title":"Ethical Investing and the Demand for Information","author":"C. J. Cowton","year":"1989"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0278677.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"415","DOI":"10.1177\/0148558X11401222","article-title":"Are sin stocks paying the price for accounting sins?.","volume":"26","author":"I. Kim","year":"2011","journal-title":"Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0278677.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12","DOI":"10.3905\/joi.1997.408443","article-title":"Social screening: Paradigms old and new.","volume":"6","author":"P. D. Kinder","year":"1997","journal-title":"The Journal of Investing"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref011","volume-title":"Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals","author":"I. Kant","year":"1998"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref012","first-page":"115","volume-title":"Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973\u20131980","author":"B. A.O. Williams","year":"1976"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref013","first-page":"137","volume-title":"Mortal Questions","author":"T. Nagel","year":"1976"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref014","article-title":"Risk, uncertainty and profit","author":"F. H. Knight","year":"1921","journal-title":"Houghton Mifflin"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0278677.ref015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"773","DOI":"10.1007\/s10551-008-9664-9","article-title":"Moral luck and business ethics","volume":"83","author":"C. Michaelson","year":"2008","journal-title":"Journal of Business Ethics"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref016","article-title":"No harm, no foul: The outcome bias in ethical judgments","author":"F. Gino","year":"2009","journal-title":"Harvard Business School NOM Working Paper"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0278677.ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"569","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.54.4.569","article-title":"Outcome bias in decision evaluation","volume":"54","author":"J. Baron","year":"1988","journal-title":"Journal of personality and social psychology"},{"issue":"4157","key":"pone.0278677.ref018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1124","DOI":"10.1126\/science.185.4157.1124","article-title":"Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases","volume":"185","author":"A. Tversky","year":"1974","journal-title":"science"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0278677.ref019","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"323","DOI":"10.1007\/s10551-011-1130-4","article-title":"Ethical blindness.","volume":"109","author":"G. Palazzo","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of Business Ethics"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0278677.ref020","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"190","DOI":"10.1093\/analys\/63.3.190","article-title":"Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language","volume":"63","author":"J. Knobe","year":"2003","journal-title":"Analysis"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref021","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"331","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cognition.2018.09.003","article-title":"No luck for moral luck","volume":"182","author":"M. Kneer","year":"2019","journal-title":"Cognition"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0278677.ref022","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"353","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cognition.2008.03.006","article-title":"Crime and punishment: Distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment","volume":"108","author":"F. Cushman","year":"2008","journal-title":"Cognition"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0278677.ref023","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"333","DOI":"10.1007\/s13164-010-0027-y","article-title":"Investigating the neural and cognitive basis of moral luck: It\u2019s not what you do but what you know.","volume":"1","author":"L. Young","year":"2010","journal-title":"Review of philosophy and psychology"},{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0278677.ref024","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"845","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-9280.2006.01792.x","article-title":"Children\u2019s biased evaluations of lucky versus unlucky people and their social groups","volume":"17","author":"K. R. Olson","year":"2006","journal-title":"Psychological Science Cambridge"},{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0278677.ref025","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"757","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.94.5.757","article-title":"Judgments of the lucky across development and culture","volume":"94","author":"K. R. Olson","year":"2008","journal-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"},{"key":"pone.0278677.ref026","first-page":"15","article-title":"The factorial survey approach: An introduction.","author":"P. H. Rossi","year":"1982","journal-title":"Measuring social judgments: The factorial survey approach"},{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0278677.ref027","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2022","DOI":"10.3758\/s13428-019-01273-7","article-title":"Online panels in social science research: Expanding sampling methods beyond Mechanical Turk.","volume":"51","author":"J. Chandler","year":"2019","journal-title":"Behavior research methods"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0278677.ref028","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"533","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-8594.2008.00331.x","article-title":"Rating of the raters: Conflicts of interest in the credit rating firms","volume":"113","author":"F. Strier","year":"2008","journal-title":"Business and Society Review"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0278677.ref029","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"187","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1744-540X.2008.00538.x","article-title":"Ratings war?","volume":"15","author":"A. Persaud","year":"2009","journal-title":"Public Policy Research"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0278677.ref030","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"477","DOI":"10.1007\/s10551-012-1212-y","article-title":"The ethics of credit rating agencies: what happened and the way forward","volume":"111","author":"S. Scalet","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of Business Ethics"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0278677.ref031","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"112","DOI":"10.3758\/s13428-013-0365-7","article-title":"Nonna\u00efvet\u00e9 among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers: Consequences and solutions for behavioral researchers","volume":"46","author":"J. Chandler","year":"2014","journal-title":"Behavior research methods"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0278677.ref032","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1634","DOI":"10.1111\/1911-3846.12469","article-title":"Investment Experience, Financial Literacy, and Investment\u2010Related Judgments","volume":"36","author":"S. D. Krische","year":"2019","journal-title":"Contemporary Accounting Research"}],"container-title":["PLOS ONE"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0278677","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,18]],"date-time":"2023-01-18T04:00:53Z","timestamp":1674014453000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0278677"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Alfonso","family":"Rosa Garcia","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"editor"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]]},"references-count":32,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0278677","relation":{},"ISSN":["1932-6203"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1932-6203","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]]}}}