Designer Knockoffs May Warp Your Morals

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.
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