What makes someone cool? Science has answers

From San Diego to Seoul, cool people have very similar personality traits despite the huge cultural differences, with new research spanning 12 countries and nearly 6,000 participants.

The study shows that coolness goes beyond boundaries and challenges cultural relativity, while confirming what many people doubt: Everyone recognizes coolness when they see it.

The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, found that cool individuals are generally considered extrovert, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open, open and autonomous, whether they live in Chile or China, Germany, Germany or Nigeria.

“Everyone wants to be cool, or at least avoid the stigma of becoming unlucky, society needs cool people because they challenge norms, inspire cultures that inspire change and move forward,” explains Todd Pezzuti, an associate professor at Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile.

Global cool formula

The study, conducted from 2018 to 2022, collecting data from the United States, Australia, Chile, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey. Participants were asked to think of someone they thought were cool, not cool, good or bad, and then rate the person’s personality and values.

The results show that all cultures have amazing consistency. Although Eastern and Western societies often differ in many cultural attitudes, the perception of coolness remains very uniform. This suggests that globalization has a shared understanding of the composition of cool behavior and personality traits.

Cool and Good: The Key Difference

The study found an important difference between “cool” and “good”. Despite some overlap, the two concepts differ in meaningful ways:

• Good people: More in line with, traditional, safe, warm, pleasant, serious and calm
• Cool people: More rebellious, unconventional, powerful, hedonistic and autonomy
• Shared features: The two groups are often a bit likable and admirable

“To be seen as cool, it usually takes some likable or admirable, which makes them similar to good people,” notes Caleb Warren, a co-leading researcher at the University of Arizona. “However, cool people often have other traits that are not necessarily considered ‘good’ in a moral sense, such as hedonism and power.”

The cool evolution

The study shows that as the fashion, music and film industries expand globally, Cool means “crystallization on similar values ​​and traits around the world” and becomes “more commercially friendly”. This raises questions about whether it has been sterilized by mainstream culture.

However, Pezzuti believes that calmness does not lose its advantage of rebellion, but is evolving. “Cooling will certainly develop over time, but I don’t think it loses its advantage. It becomes more functional,” he observed.

The concept originated from a small rebellious subculture, including the black jazz musicians of the 1940s and the Beatniks of the 1950s. As society accelerates and increases the value of creativity and change, cool people become more important than relevant.

The science behind social currency

The research method included key details not emphasized in the press release: only participants familiar with the meaning of “cool” were included in the study. This screening process ensures that cultural and linguistic changes do not tend toward outcomes, thereby enhancing findings about universal cool traits.

The online format of the study means that the findings may not be extended to rural areas without the internet, but the consistency of various urban populations suggests a strong cross-cultural validity.

As globalization continues to reshape cultural norms, this study shows that certain aspects of human social perception remain surprisingly consistent. Whether cool people are corporate innovators or underground artists, the basic characteristics that define coolness seem to be universal constants in our increasingly connected world.

Related