Eller Research on What Makes Someone “Cool” Gains National Media Attention

Research co-authored by Caleb Warren, Susan and Philip Hagenah Fellow in Marketing and associate professor of marketing in the Eller College of Management, is gaining national attention—recently featured in The New York Times, First Post.com, The Seattle Times and highlighted in a broadcast interview with Arizona’s CW7 “The Broomhead Show.”

The study offers new insight into how people across cultures define coolness—and reveals that those perceptions are more consistent than one might expect.

Titled “Cool People: Attributes of Cool People and Their Stability Across Cultures,” the research was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Alongside authors Todd Pezzuti of Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and Jinjie Chen of the University of Georgia, Warren surveyed nearly 6,000 participants across 12 countries to better understand what makes someone cool and whether those definitions differ globally.

In the New York Times article “What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues,” Warren shared that the most surprising finding was how universal the results were. Despite cultural differences, people consistently associated six key traits with cool individuals: being extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous. “What blew my mind was that it was pretty much the same result everywhere,” he shares.

Participants in the study came from a wide range of regions, including Australia, Chile, China (mainland and Hong Kong), Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United States. To be part of the study, individuals had to recognize the English word “cool,” underscoring how globalized the concept has become through the influence of Western culture.

Warren also discussed whether or not one’s perception of cool differs depending on their age. “There’s certainly going to be different specific products—music, TV shows—that older and younger people consider cool,” he explains. “But what we found in our data is if you look at the traits in people, we see the same types of people being considered cool, whether we are 20 or 70.”

The study also distinguishes between being perceived as “cool” versus being considered “good.” While there is some overlap, good people were more often described as warm, secure, traditional and conforming—traits not strongly tied to coolness. 

Warren focuses his research on what makes things cool, what makes things funny and how people can effectively pursue their goals. His work contributes to a broader understanding of how cultural perceptions evolve and influence human behavior.