The Counterfeit Self: The Deceptive Costs of Faking It

MAY 20, 2013

Knockoff Products Make You Feel Inauthentic

71% of women who were knowingly wearing counterfeit designer sunglasses in a lab experiment cheated on a money-earning task, in comparison with 30% of those wearing authentic glasses, say Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University. Moreover, participants who believed they were wearing counterfeit sunglasses judged other people as more likely to behave dishonestly. Use of counterfeits harms people's self-image, inducing a sense of a "counterfeit self," the researchers say.

Source: The Counterfeit Self: The Deceptive Costs of Faking It