What does it take to be considered “cool” in this day and age? A new study has interviewed people around the world to find out.
From hedonistic tendencies to having extroverted and adventurous personalities, researchers have concluded that there is a unique mix of qualities that people around the world view as being ‘cool’.
The study, titled ‘Cool People’ and published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, interviewed 5,943 people from Australia, Chile, China, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the U.S. to reach its answers over a five year period.
Although the study omitted people from the UK for an unknown reason, the research suggested that the notion of coolness is viewed through a similar lens wherever you are in the world, despite cultural differences.
So what kind of qualities make a person cool, according to this study?
What does cool actually mean?
Before we explore what the researchers found to be ‘cool’, let's define what it actually means.
The Cambridge Dictionary has plenty of explanations of the term ‘cool’, including “fashionable in a way that people admire.”
According to the study, ‘cool’ emerged as a term in the 1960s African American and bohemian subculture movements and continues to describe positive qualities in people, objects, behaviours, and experiences.
It’s a social construct, with researchers agreeing that in many ways, “coolness is in the eye of the beholder.”
While in some ways it’s subjective, certain qualities are often associated with coolness as well. The paper goes on to suggest that ‘cool’ people have surprisingly similar personalities worldwide.
“Coolness has definitely evolved over time, but I don’t think it has lost its edge. It’s just become more functional,” said the co-lead researcher Todd Pezzuti. “The concept of coolness started in small, rebellious subcultures, including Black jazz musicians in the 1940s and the beatniks in the 1950s. As society moves faster and puts more value on creativity and change, cool people are more essential than ever.”
What makes a person cool?
The study asked people who were familiar with the word ‘cool’ to name a good person, a not good person, a cool person and a not cool person, before rating their personalities and values.
Although coolness is largely associated with the traits you’d identify in a ‘good’ person, the findings suggested that this goes a little further.
“To be seen as cool, someone usually needs to be somewhat likeable or admirable, which makes them similar to good people,” co-lead researcher Caleb Warren said.
“However, cool people often have other traits that aren’t necessarily considered ‘good’ in a moral sense, like being hedonistic and powerful.”
In fact, ‘good’ people tended to be viewed as more conforming, while ‘cool’ people were also considered for qualities such as power, autonomy, adventure, openness, and extraversion, regardless of age or gender. People who are considered ‘good’ rather than ‘cool’ are conscientious, universalistic, warm, traditional, and conforming.
However, when some of these ‘cool’ attributes are combined, they can also sometimes have the opposite effect: the report directly identifies that Tesla investors didn't see Elon Musk smoking marijuana as ‘cool’.
What’s more, people “are unlikely to seem cool if they appear to be exerting too much effort.”
