Today I read an article that I found infuriating, but then I’m easily infuriated, because of what appeared to be either really bad methodology in a study or really silly conclusions by the journalist who wrote the piece. Since I can’t see the study and I can read the piece, I’ll try to avoid pointing a finger in either direction. It was posted several months ago, but came to my attention today. It reminded me of how important it is to be critical of the media’s handling of scientific studies.
The piece is called “The Psychology of Knock Offs: Why ‘Faking It’ Makes Us Feel (and Act) Like Phonies“. The basic premise is that, through a study recently conducted, scientists have concluded that people are more dishonest and cynical when they wear knock off goods.
I’ll be the first to admit that this sort of thing falls well below my normal threshold of caring. People who wear things because they are a specific brand or because they look like they’re a specific brand are a little alien to me. It strikes me as fairly shallow behavior, but if it makes them happy, it’s really no skin off my back. If you can buy something for $5 from a dude on the street in New York and it impresses all the ladies back home because it looks like a $500 purse, good for you, right? How on earth does a purse cost that much anyway?
In any event, the basic methodology for the study was that they had girls come in and they gave them sunglasses. Half were told they were super expensive awesome sunglasses, and the other half were told they were cheapo knockoffs. They were then given a battery of tests in which lying would earn them more money. They were also given a survey that asked them their views on the world. The women (and it was all young women, why no guys?) who were told they had cheapo sunglasses were much more likely to lie and be cynical.
From this, the journalist concludes that people who buy knock offs are paying a hidden moral cost that makes them more likely to lie and be cynical.
Wearing counterfeit glasses not only fails to bolster our ego and self-image the way we hope, it actually undermines our internal sense of authenticity. “Faking it” makes us feel like phonies and cheaters on the inside, and this alienated, counterfeit “self” leads to cheating and cynicism in the real world.
That would be a really interesting conclusion if the methodology at all allowed you to make it, but it doesn’t.
I have some questions that aren’t answered in the article. Did they all get the sunglasses at the same time? Did they know other people had supposedly real sunglasses? Were they tested by the same person who told them that the sunglasses were real or fake? Did they get to take the glasses home, or did they think they would get to take the glasses home?
But there are problems I can see with just the information in the article:
1) The volunteers given “real” sunglasses were told they were authentic, so they’d already been rewarded and were therefore more likely to do what they thought the researchers wanted.
2) The volunteers given “fake” sunglasses had been told, essentially, that they didn’t deserve real sunglasses when the researchers told them they were fakes, and were therefore less likely to do what they thought the researchers wanted.
3) The volunteers had just been cheated, of course they felt more negative.
4) The volunteers were gifted sunglasses, they didn’t buy them knowing that they were knock offs, so it’s impossible to extrapolate the behavior to people who buy their own sunglasses.
5) The volunteers received no benefit from wearing fake sunglasses because they didn’t buy them — the entire reason people buy fake brand names is to save money, in what way is a study that excludes the primary motivating factor at all useful in studying a behavior?
6) There’s no way to be sure that the behavior is linked to wearing the sunglasses rather than linked to being given sunglasses of one kind or another.
The only reasonable conclusion from the study is that people who are given things they’re told aren’t very nice don’t feel terribly good about it. This is, of course, not a broad and moralistic statement and it doesn’t really make good news, and that’s a big problem with a lot of science reporting. When something interesting happens in a study, the response is to exaggerate it, make huge claims, and moralize wherever possible. Interesting patterns are often pointed to as conclusive results and people with pre-determined moral opinions take things and run.
If you want to tell me that ”[c]ounterfeiting is a serious economic and social problem, epidemic in scale,” I’d love to hear the whys and wherefores, but I’d much rather hear the facts and figures accurately explained.
It certainly looks suspicious and for all of the reasons you give here and more. I will have to read the article itself, though, before I comment further. I am very familiar with the work of Ariely, one of the authors, and it is usually excellent.
Quite often what I discover when I go to the source is that the media’s reporting of the article doesn’t match the study itself or the conclusions drawn by the researcher(s). I certainly hope that’s the case here. I’ll let you know later in the day when I have had a chance to read it…
Well-handled, and you touched on the main point that was bugging me while reading it: They didn’t BUY the sunglasses, they were GIVEN the sunglasses. Essentially ALL of the conclusions reached are immediately thrown out by that difference as it changes the entire dynamics of the test. It changes the thought processes of the people, their motivations, and their personalities. This test speaks to how people react differently to people who just gave them junk versus expensive merchandise, and it also potentially speaks to their expectations of what said people want to hear. If someone gives you a knock-off, you’re more likely to assume that they’re in favor of knock-offs, and you’ll skew your answers toward supporting the interests of the people asking you the questions.
They also, from this description, left out all blinding, as well as an important control group: people who didn’t know whether the glasses were genuine.
Assuming this isn’t just a MASSIVE misinterpretation of the study (which is therefore an issue in itself), I think the study pretty much failed on all points.
wow what a terrible article. I’m guessing that perhaps it was funded by some group that fights “knock offs”. Maybe it was funded by Louis Vuitton and Coach?
I have to admit I have a $5 Chanel bag. I used it at TAM (I have no place for even a fake Chanel bag here in Spofford Village). It was a gift from someone that lives in China. His wife picked it out for me. A friend at TAM that owns real designer goods checked it out and was “pretty good!”. I wouldn’t be able to own a real designer bag, because I do stuff like spill sodas in my bag and run my bag over with the car. More than once.
A lot of people buying fakes can’t afford a real bag. I often wonder if those studies saying “oh conterfieting costs Louis Vuitton 10 billion a year” are based in reality.
Oh well, I have never had so many compliments on a bag as the one I am carrying now. It’s a Yak Pak with birds on it. I started keeping a count and I’m up to 25 compliments in 2 months. Now that’s a great bag! Plus you can run it over with your car, and it’s fine. Maybe not the stuff in the bag, but the bag is fine.
I sit on my sunglasses. And lose them. All the damn time. That’s all I have to add.
No, seriously, I wonder not only about the study itself, but where the communication broke down. Did the reporter make these conclusions erroneously on his own? Did he interview the scientists, and did they over-interpret their own work? Studies later show to be incorrect do get published, but far-fetched claims should be weeded out in the peer-review process.
Also, this is why I love the practice of publishing free preprints in astronomy. And linking to them when I blog. That way anyone can check out the research (if they are willing to put up with the jargon.)
I can’t access the article to discuss Ashley’s points; my school’s subscription is blocked for 12 months and I haven’t been an APS member for a couple of years.
However…
If you read the abstract, you’ll see that they don’t draw those conclusions from the one comparison in which people were randomly assigned to wear glasses.
It says:
Nicole, in my experience, the press release is often misleading, but the reporting, when it does not just quote the press release, is usually where the most serious problems are.
Again, Ariely is a very respectable researcher at Duke. Psychologists are generally not funded by commercial enterprise for anything. Most of the grants psychologists receive are from NSF, NIMH, NASA, and other government agencies.
This is most likely poor reporting of a decent study. We also need to be open to the possibility that the findings suggest that at least some of what the reporter said is true.
I would like to add that this is a good example of why communicating findings to the masses is not always the best thing to do. People tend to take findings from one study as a definitive answer to a specific question, and that’s not how it works. The peer-review process doesn’t weed out research that is not broad or final, just research that isn’t up to standards. Without these publications, we couldn’t move forward and eliminate other explanations for the findings.
This is someone who looks at name brand last when making purchases. I am not at all impressed by designer apparel, purses, sunglasses, etc. Maybe I am missing something, but the article is concluding that people that wear knockoffs are less honest? Really? What about those of us who don’t give a crap if a pair of shoes is from Paolo or Route 66, just so they fit, are in my budget and last at least a season without wearing flat out.
I certainly hope that the article just didn’t know what they were talking about, cause it really doesn’t make any sense to me.
Sylvie, the journal article wasn’t about whether people prefer the “real thing” or brand names or anything like that. When the blog article used the term “knock-off”, I think they were misleading. The study didn’t involve copy-cats, but rather fake products – products that claim to be a prestigious brand, but are not. The study is about lying/faking, not choosing less expensive brands.
Also, we do not study individuals, so we cannot generalize to them. We never say, “This is true for every person”. We can only make predictions based on averages. People vary a great deal.
it’s super confusing. Because if they said people that BOUGHT the sunglasses were somehow.. I don’t know, more prone to download bootleg music or not pay their taxes….but given? Like wearing them MAKES you behave badly? I’m confused. Which is the point I guess!
Just a personal anecdote… When I receive terrible/cheap/ugly gifts (branded or not), I immediately behave dishonestly and thank the giver before (secretly) dropping the item in the charity box.
I have access to the article. Let me know on if you’d like to read it.
I would, Jenna, if you wouldn’t mind emailing it to me. Thanks a bunch.
Anthropologist! Join the club! We have a bag at Xmas just waiting as we open presents. There is one relative, we don’t even know why we bother opening the gift. We’ve never kept it! But the Salvation Army hopefully gets a few bucks..