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Designer Knockoffs May Warp Your Morals

Buy one, and you're more prone to lie and cheat: Study

By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 25, 2010 10:10 AM CDT

(Newser) – It isn't just luxury corporations who suffer from designer knockoffs—carrying a fake Vuitton bag can turn you into a big lying cheat, a new psychological study claims. Women who were given real Chloe sunglasses but told they were fake lied at more than double the rate of women given what they knew were authentic glasses, the study found—suggesting that the lying wasn't just a matter of the personality that would choose knockoffs in the first place, but seemed to come from the internal feeling of phoniness that wearing knockoffs induced.

Not only did 70% of the women who thought they were wearing knockoffs in effect steal money (by inflating results on a self-scored test) when given the opportunity, they also perceived those around them as more unethical in comparison with those who knew they weren't wearing knockoffs, Scientific American reports. So that faux-logo Fendi won't just make you think you're a rotten fake, it'll make you think everyone else is, too.

A woman shows off her knockoff handbag. She paid $8 for the bag instead of hundreds.
A woman shows off her knockoff handbag. She paid $8 for the bag instead of hundreds.   (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 8 comments
MDD
Aug 26, 2010 6:20 AM CDT
Morals are a man made delusion, the only so called "moral ones" are those that haven't be caught screwing someone over.
myflap.blow
Aug 26, 2010 1:02 AM CDT
That was a very interesting experiment. Quick, do Palin.
Ultraworld
Aug 25, 2010 9:11 PM CDT
A lot of the knockoffs are made in the same Chinese factories the "real" stuff is made in. The jokes on us.

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