Hard to digest investments: People oppose investment in both conventional and cultured meat producers

The production of meat from farmed animals is problematic both on ethical and environmental grounds. However, we are on the eve of the mass production of cultured (lab) meat. This alternative to conventional meat should be both more environmentally sustainable and cause less harm to animals, making it more socially acceptable. In this paper, we investigate how people judge investing in meat producers, an issue that has become more salient with the increasing importance of socially responsible investment. We conducted two experimental studies (N = 1301) aimed at answering whether people can separate associations towards meat when judging companies that produce them, resolving whether evaluations of meat producers as investment targets have a motivational or affective component, or not. Our findings show that people exhibit an aversion towards investment in both conventional (dconventional = −0.97) and cultured meat producers (dcultured = −0.26), consistent with the former. Concern for animal welfare exacerbates (dconventional = −1.34) or attenuates (dcultured = 0.31) this aversion unless people feel disgust-towards-animal-flesh, which has a similar adverse effect regardless of meat origin. Our findings suggest that for many, cultured meat producers might remain controversial investment targets. We speculate that similar paradoxical patterns could be observed in other economic decisions, making them socially consequential.