Wearing Knockoffs Linked to Dishonesty
vendredi, 3 septembre 2010
Industrial counterfeits might be more than an economic evil. New research conducted by psychologists in the United States suggests that people who wear knockoffs (sunglasses in this case) were considerably more prone to lying and cheating.
According to scientists at the University of North Carolina, Havard Business School, and Duke University, whose results were published in the September issue of Scientific American, wearing knockoff sunglasses compromises personal ethics. In a series of tests carried out with a sample population of young women, the rate of cheating was more than twice as high among women who thought they were wearing knockoffs than those who believed they had the genuine article.
The authors of the study pointed out that people bought knockoffs thinking that they would improve their image. The outcome was quite the opposite. The psychologists reported that wearing "fake" items makes us feel like phonies, which leads to cheating and cynicism.
Sources: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faking-it