These two personality types choose high-status cars.
Two different personality types are attracted to driving a high-status cars, like an Audi, Mercedes or BMW.
The first group fits a familiar stereotype: argumentative, disagreeable, and unempathetic men.
The second type, though, is a conscientious man or woman: someone who wants others to know they are respectable, reliable and well-organised.
Those are the results of a study inspired by the common observation that drivers of high-status cars are more likely to break traffic regulations.
Professor Jan-Erik Lönnqvist, the study’s lead author, was inspired by his own observations on the road:
“I had noticed that the ones most likely to run a red light, not give way to pedestrians and generally drive recklessly and too fast were often the ones driving fast German cars.”
The fast and the reckless
Indeed, studies have shown that people driving more expensive cars are more likely to break the rules.
Wealth, psychologists have argued, has a corrupting effect on people, making them less law-abiding.
That may be so, but Professor Lönnqvist and colleagues thought the link could be partly explained by personality.
To test this, the researchers surveyed 1,892 car owners in Finland, asking about their cars, wealth and consumption habits.
The results revealed that men who are disagreeable, argumentative and stubborn are more likely to own a high-status car.
Professor Lönnqvist said:
“These personality traits explain the desire to own high-status products, and the same traits also explain why such people break traffic regulations more frequently than others.”
While disagreeable men showed the strongest link to luxury vehicles, Professor Lönnqvist noted a broader trend:
“But we also found that those whose personality was deemed more disagreeable were more drawn to high-status cars.
These are people who often see themselves as superior and are keen to display this to others.”
A second, less obvious group that was attracted to high-status cars was men and women high in conscientiousness.
Conscientious people tend to be well-organised, reliable, ambitious and respectable.
Professor Lönnqvist said:
“The link is presumably explained by the importance they attach to high quality.
All makes of car have a specific image, and by driving a reliable car they are sending out the message that they themselves are reliable.”
One puzzle was why high-status cars do not particularly appeal to self-centred women.
Professor Lönnqvist thinks one possibility is that women do not see cars as significant status symbols as do men.
Related
The study was published in the International Journal of Psychology (Lönnqvist et al., 2019).
