Homo Moralis: Personal Characteristics, Institutions, and Moral Decision-Making

  • Author: Thomas Deckers, Armin Falk, Fabian Kosse and Nora Szech

     

  • Date: February 2021
  • This paper studies how individual characteristics, institutions and their interaction influence moral decisions. We explore how moral behaviour varies with individual characteristics using a real moral task that focuses on the willingness to harm third parties for money. The data demonstrate that in line with scenario and questionnaire studies, a moral type – a “homo moralis” – exists: intelligence, female gender and the existence of siblings positively affect moral decisions. Furthermore, religiousness and vegetarianism positively correlate. This holds in individual contexts as well as market environments. Fluid intelligence even has an over-proportional effect in protecting against moral erosion in markets.​​​​​​​