The research is clear but...it's still murky...
That much is obvious from an experiment to determine if the car you drive (and presumably own) can make you more attractive, sexy, and desirable.
The American political satirist and author P.J. O’Rourke famously quipped, “There are a number of mechanical devices that increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief amongst these is the Mercedes-Benz 380L convertible.”
At first, O’Rourke sounds condescending, using a sexist stereotype. But like all stereotypes, it’s right…until it’s wrong.
Let’s consider the science!
The Dunn-Searle Experiment
In 2010, researchers Michael J. Dunn and Robert Searle experimented with cars and sex appeal. They used two cars: a silver Bentley Continental GT and a red Ford Fiesta ST. The Bentley is a very expensive, high-status car. The Ford Fiesta is neither. A man and a woman (of ‘matched attractiveness’) were photographed – individually – seated in each of the two cars.
Dunn and Searle then questioned the study participants – 240 men and women between the ages of 21 and 40 – and asked them to rate the attractiveness of the opposite sex in either the Bentley or the Ford Fiesta.
The psychologists discovered that, on the whole, women rated the same man more attractive when he was in the Bentley than when he was in the Ford. Conversely, men did not rate the same woman more attractive just because she was in a higher-status car.
“Males...are oblivious to such cues” is how the study reported it.
To quote Canadian psychologist Professor Gad Saad: Drive a hot car and you’ll be perceived as hot, but only if you are a man.
The Hot-or-Not Experiment
In a study conducted in the same year by psychologists Greg Shuler and David McCord, the Hot or Not website (since rebranded as Chat & Date), which lets people upload pictures so that each photo can be rated for its ‘hotness’, also wanted to test the connection between cars and sex appeal. Would a man’s ‘hotness’ vary depending on his vehicle?
The researchers tested four photos of the same man – but in each photo he was either alone or photographed beside one of three vehicles of varying status and price. The man was rated as more ‘hot’ when he was next to a Mercedes C Class C300 – the most expensive of the vehicles in the study – than when he was alone or next to the Dodge Neon (sold as the Chrysler Neon in Australia).
Again to quote Gad Saad: hot cars translate into hot men.
Or do they?
Why the Car Does Not Make the Man
The glib conclusions quoted above are from a book entitled ‘The Consuming Instinct’ by Professor Saad. If you don’t drive a so-called ‘high status’ car, you have every right to feel dejected after reading it. But Saad’s conclusions weren’t the whole story.
When you actually read the paper by Dunn and Searle you notice something very interesting when you dig into their data results. It reveals that women who saw the picture of the man in the Ford Fiesta rated him as a 6 (on a 10-point scale) in attractiveness, whereas in the Bentley he was rated a 7. The male was only ‘hotter’ by one point! Not much, especially when you consider the staggering price of a Bentley at about AUD$450,000 (at today’s price), compared to around AUD35,000 for the Fiesta (no longer in production).
Conclusion...sort of
It seems that Professor Saad sacrificed scientific accuracy in an attempt to appear…glib.
The more accurate conclusion would be: most women rate a man only one notch higher if he’s driving a very expensive car.
Is it worth a hellish car payment on a rapidly depreciating asset to be one notch better looking?
There’s no doubt that more money can get you more things like cars, admirers, lovers, sycophants, etc. Similarly, if you had more corn you could attract more pigs. Question is: why do you want pigs?
It’s worth noting that you don’t need an expensive car to go up one meagre notch in someone’s estimation. Improve your confidence. Polish your manners. Exercise. Learn to dance. Do interesting things. Volunteer. Or ask them what they want in Life.
You’ll probably go up one more notch in their eyes….and you’ll avoid an awful car payment.
Then again...
Let’s ditch formal (albeit questionable) research for a moment and address this issue through the eyes of a person, between the ages of say 21 – 40, who wants to appear attractive to another person (the term ‘opposite sex’ is so politically-loaded and no longer relevant we refuse to use it)!
Putting focus groups and psychologists to one side, what does it ‘feel’ like for a young person (or any person for that matter) to drive an expensive or exotic marque? Whether or not the person you’re hoping to attract finds you to be a more desirable companion, how you feel arguably has an impact on how you present/respond to the people you meet.
So we turn the tables, from the observer to the observed.
Instead of Dunn and Searle questioning 240 people about how they responded to a man and a woman in two particular cars, they could have asked each of these observers to relate how they felt when given the chance to sit in the Bentley and the Ford Fiesta. The guess is they would have felt privileged to sit in the beautifully-accessorised Bentley, knowing it would only ever be an aspirational dream.
You can see them running their hands over the steering wheel, opening and closing the wood-grained glove box and moving their seat backwards and forwards in a seamless way. You could even imagine them driving the Bentley to a party and watching the shocked and envious reaction by guests. You KNOW it would feel good.
The more affordable Fiesta, on the other hand, would have felt familiar, more of a consolation prize than a prized acquisition.
The Future
What do car designers aim to achieve when they begin to sketch out the next generation of motor vehicle?
Do they aim to create a particular ‘look’? Something that will validate how you ‘feel’ when you get behind the wheel? And do designers use the same logic when designing a $40,000 car as they would for a $400,000 car?
According to Lars Perner, associate professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, “a car is a kind of extension of the self - it seems to send a message about what kind of person one is and one’s sense of values and style.”
This view of a car possessing qualities that relate to us on an almost human level is common to timeless brands. For a brand to be timeless, it must relate to us on both a rational and emotional level. Certain car brands relate to certain types of personalities. Think of the Ford Mustang.
The Mustang and Louis Cheskin go hand in hand, like cookies and cream and democracy and sausages.
Cheskin, a scientific researcher, clinical psychologist, and marketing innovator, was born in the Russian Empire and died at Stanford University at the age of 72. He was a marketing genius, responsible for the Marlboro Man and adding a yellow die to margarine so that it looked like butter. (Sales went through the roof).
Cheskin argued that Mustang had emotional meaning to the American public as it represented an animal that was ‘rugged’ and ‘fast’. Americans could identify with these qualities, and the styling of the Mustang was in harmony with the name.
Anthony Prozzi, design manager for Ford in Michigan, explains that “part of a designer’s job is to play psychologist, anthropologist and sociologist, and knowing those things helps you read consumers and know what puts a smile on their faces.”
Cars have personalities, just as humans do. Prozzi, who once designed menswear at Donna Karan, uses the principle of story when he designs cars. He says that even before he puts a pen to paper, he needs a good story. He does this by asking the questions “Who is this person or group of people? How do they live? What do they respond to and what are they sensitive to?”
We have only scratched the surface on this fascinating subject. What will be interesting as the automotive industry navigates away from fossil fuel to alternative sources of energy like electricity and hydrogen, is how the industry will define and design its cars to meet a new dawn.
Presumably, with petrol and diesel-driven cars still available, the purchase of any non-traditionally fuelled car will feel like a positive statement is being made about the person driving that car.
Over time, with countries setting deadlines for the phasing out of fossil fuel, there will be a different conversation about ownership of electric and hydrogen fuelled vehicles. Well, maybe not so different.
Sources:
Dunn, Michael J. and Robert Searle. “Effect of Manipulated Prestige-Car Ownership on Both Sex Attractiveness Ratings.” British Journal of Psychology 101 (2010): 69-80. Accessed 26 August 2017 via semanticsscholar.org.
Saad, Gad. The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal about Human Nature. Prometheus Books, 2011.
Shuler, Gregory A. and David M. McCord. “Determinants of Male Attractiveness: ‘Hotness’ Ratings as a Function of Perceived Resources.” American Journal of Psychological Research 6 no. 1 (2010): 10-23. Accessed 26 August 2017 via mcneese.edu.
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