Imagine that for some reason, whether it be boredom or curiosity, you enter an average thrift store at the back of an alley.  The store is not full of your usual donated granny clothing, cheesy statues, or old books.  Instead, it is full of shrunken heads, various organs put in jars, and green bubbly cauldrons scattered in various places.  A warty old woman with a crackly voice welcomes you into the building and leads you to what appears to be the most normal thing in the store; a golden locket.  The old woman looks at the locket with admiration, stating that the necklace was forged in lava by the notorious Mongols thousands of years ago.  She goes on to describe that their most famous leader Genghis Khan, died while wearing the locket.  At his deathbed, he swore to terribly curse anyone who wore the locket, since he saw it as his untouchable prized procession, even in death.  Most people after hearing that would run the heck away and leave the store as soon as possible, not wanting some ancient curse to potentially kill them.  However, for some reason you are interested in the locket, say for a gift for your mother after forgetting her birthday, and idiotically buy the cursed necklace.  Alas, chaos ensues and not everyone in your circle is going to survive that one careless decision.

  You are probably wondering why I went out of my way to describe that scenario throughly.  You are also probably wondering why in your right mind would you ever take the cursed locket of Genghis Khan, considering his reputation in history.  The simple reason is this; the point of this topic.  Too many characters, whether it be in a book or a movie, unrealistically go with the choice of buying or stealing the obviously cursed artifact, even if they are given an in-depth backstory of its notoriety.  No one in their right mind in real life would ever go through with taking the artifact, no matter how pretty or expensive it may seem to be.  Enough people out there believe in curses, bad luck, or ghosts to know that avoiding the artifact at all costs is the right option.  So why do characters in horror story after horror story always end up making this mistake?

  My theory is that the authors of these stories believe everyone is an idiot and would make the same choice in real life.  While there are a couple of people who may keep their heads a little too close to the clouds, common sense would take over for anyone presented with a potentially haunted artifact and they would stay as far away as possible from the object.  Intuition rules over intelligence in these situations.  No matter how well written your cast of characters might be in a horror story, unless they are tricked or forced to keep the artifact, it is wildly out of character for any of them to take the object just because.  There has to be a strong explanation as to why your cast of characters are going to potentially get cursed by gaining ownership of the artifact.

  One strong route to take in this situation is that the artifact is passed down from generation to generation in a particular character's family, forcing them to keep the object out of respect.  To the person receiving the object, it would seem morally wrong to disrespect the opinion of their ancestors.  Thus, they would realistically take the risk of getting cursed, creating a realistic way for the horror plot to get started.  Most readers would not question the character's decision here and sympathize with them when everything bad rumored about the object wound up being true.  Plus, the familiar lore as to why this artifact is so important would keep tons of readers invested out of curiosity.

  Another great route to take is that the character in question does not know the object is cursed when receiving or taking it.  In the case of buying the object or having the artifact passed down, you simply skip the in-depth backstory until the character unfortunately finds out it is cursed for themselves.  Without information to back up their hunch, most people would keep the artifact without question.  As for the case of stealing the cursed artifact, you could present the character as selfish, only taking the object for fame or wealth.  In this case, the character would tune out anyone who tried to warn them, only in it for the high status symbol.  This scenario especially works well if the character is foreign, meaning they would have no background information on the artifact in question.  Your characterization in both examples stays perfectly in-line, and the audience questions their motives a lot less.

  My personal favorite idea of the bunch though is that the artifact is linked with something important to the character, for example the house they just bought.  In these cases, it would be extremely hard for the character to sacrifice something they care about, thus risking the curse due to attachment.  Anyone who just bought a new house after years of saving up or owns something they care about, for example a game system or a card collection, would not want to give up their prized procession that easily.  In these cases, the character's motive is relatable and the audience will sympathize with the character when they have to give up the object to save their own skin.  The high emotional stakes make the average reader invested into the story, thus allowing a higher chance of the story catching on to a wider audience.

  Whatever you choose, don't just have the character in question in your horror story take any cursed artifact without a reasonable explanation.  Otherwise, the story is going to be presented as extremely unrealistic and people are going to get annoyed.