- The study surveyed 529 male and female business students to examine the appeal of loud exhausts.
- Students also completed a Short Dark Tetrad test to look for dark personality traits.
- The results linked a preference for loud cars to sadistic and psychopathic traits.
The lack of engine and exhaust noise is one of the factors that discourage many car enthusiasts from choosing electric vehicles, no matter how fast they can accelerate. But have you ever wondered why some of us love loud whistles and others don’t? A new study says it’s all linked to personality types and that a preference for loud cars could be an indication of sadistic or psychopathic tendencies.
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Julie Aitken Schermer, a professor of psychology and management and organizational studies at Western University in London, Ontario, came up with the idea for the study while walking her dog near campus.
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“Every day we come across these loud cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles that backfire and it scares me,” she said CBC. “My dog was scared. I see the animals running away in the trees and the squirrels on the ground.
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“I thought, ‘Oh, who really wants to make that much noise?’ As a typical academic, I did an extensive search and found nothing.”
That’s why Aitken Schermer decided to conduct his own study and survey 529 male, female and “other” business students. She asked participants if they liked loud cars and if they would modify their own rides to make them louder. And Schermer also gave each person a Short Dark Tetrad (SD4) personality test, which aimed to detect four dark personality traits: narcissism, sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.
She expected to find a clear connection between narcissism and a preference for loud cars, and assumed that the attention-grabbing potential of a loud engine would appeal to people who like to draw attention to themselves. Instead, she found a greater connection to sadism and psychopathy.
“It seems to be this callous disregard for other people’s feelings and reactions,” Aitken Schermer said CBC. “That’s the psychopathy coming out, and they probably also enjoy watching people get scared.”
The research was limited to studying young business students at the same university and did not ask about feelings about other noisy vehicles such as motorcycles, so the results did not necessarily reflect those of a larger sample group. But do you agree with these findings?
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