How malleable is the aversion to stigmatized work?

Conflicting narratives about controversial business models are common in the debates surrounding stigmatized companies. We study whether such narratives affect individuals’ willingness to accept stigmatized work. In a laboratory experiment, we show that reservation wages for a job which assists the marketing of tobacco products are substantially higher than for a similar but non-stigmatized job. We then randomly expose participants either to narratives commonly used by the tobacco industry or to narratives used by a civil society opponent of the tobacco industry. Neither set of narratives affects behavior. This finding can be explained by the firm moral views held by participants. Our results suggest that aversion to stigmatized work is a robust feature of preferences, which is necessary for moral concerns to persistently influence labor market outcomes.