The science of being cool: The six traits that make you irresistible (anywhere in the world)

There is something that people all over the world seem to agree on. It doesn’t matter whether they live in Nigeria, Chile, or Spain. Nor does it matter if they are men or women, or if they are 25 or 60 years old. If you ask all those people what it means to be a cool person, the vast majority will give the same answer: someone who is extroverted and hedonistic; powerful and adventurous; open and autonomous. At least, that’s what a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests. The study surveyed nearly 6,000 people from 12 countries and found that these six attributes form a universal pattern around the idea of what’s cool — a pattern that is surprisingly consistent across all the cultures analyzed. This shows that the concept has crystallized on a global scale.

Todd Pezzuti is an associate professor of Marketing at the Business School of Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile. He holds a PhD in Management from the University of California, and one of his main research interests is how social influence can shape collective thinking. That’s why he was drawn to uncovering what people around the world understand as cool, awesome, chill, dope — whatever word each culture uses to express it.

“Some people say that being cool comes from confidence and competence, while others associate it with rebellion,” explains the expert. He adds: “Others argue that the term has been so diluted that it’s now just a synonym for being nice. We wanted to go beyond opinions and get real answers.”

The desire to be cool, Pezzuti suggests, has a powerful impact on both individuals and society. But why consider the idea of “cool” as anything more than a construct of marketing, Hollywood movies, or capitalism? The author has an answer: “We believe cool people serve a specific function within groups and societies — they push boundaries and help spark cultural change.”

Elena Daprá, a psychologist at the Official College of Psychology of Madrid, did not participate in the study but agrees with the authors’ conclusions. “What’s cool isn’t just a trend or an aesthetic phenomenon, but a universal psychosocial category that identifies people who can inspire, seduce, or lead emotionally without being bound by established rules,” she explains. From a psychological perspective, she adds, one could say that “these qualities activate evolutionary mechanisms related to social attraction, group differentiation, and the ability to generate desire and identification in others.”

Despite this universality, the authors expected the concept of cool to vary from one country to another. The data — always unpredictable — surprised them, revealing far more similarities than differences. The selection of the 13 countries was based partly on convenience and partly on theoretical diversity, Pezzuti notes. “We deliberately included countries like Turkey, Nigeria, and South Korea to capture a broader range of cultural perspectives,” he explains.

In every case, the researchers asked participants to think of four specific people: one who was cool and one who wasn’t; one who was good and one who wasn’t. Then, the volunteers completed a series of questionnaires measuring 15 different attributes. In this way, “good people” were collectively associated with ideas like conforming, traditional, warm, and calm. Meanwhile, cool people were linked to a distinctive kind of rebelliousness — one that, interestingly, traces its origins to jazz culture more than 70 years ago.

A journey to the origin of

It’s the 1940s in the United States. Saxophonist Lester Young steps onto the stage, his face serious and hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. It seems like a simple gesture — not smiling and covering his eyes in front of the audience. But in doing so, he’s challenging the racial norms of his time. This is how cool was born.

“If we think about African-American jazz musicians in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s, they played a fundamental role in defining the original meaning of cool,” Pezzuti notes.

For many of these artists, being cool was a form of silent resistance, the researcher explains — an emotionally controlled and self-assured attitude in the face of racism and exclusion. Musicians like Young, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk were marked by a detached confidence, independence, and artistic integrity. “Being cool wasn’t loud or flashy. It was discreet, defiant, and dignified,” says Pezzuti.

Over time, this idea of cool — based on autonomy, nonconformity, and cultural innovation — has expanded and become commercialized. First it was adopted by subcultures like punk and hip-hop, and later by brands, mass media, and ultimately the algorithms of social networks like TikTok. “The interesting thing is that even before the internet, there were already globally recognized cool figures: from James Dean to Muhammad Ali, from Frida Kahlo to David Bowie,” Daprá reflects. The difference is that now, visibility and virality accelerate the homogenization of this aspirational ideal, and everyone wants to be like everyone else.

Globalization has acted as both a loudspeaker and stabilizer of the concept of cool on a global scale. “While the study shows that shared patterns of cool already exist, what social media, brands, and pop culture have done is consolidate and amplify these ideals in every corner of the planet,” the psychologist adds. In other words, today’s hyperconnectiviy hasn’t created cool, but it has unified its symbols, aesthetics, and narratives, making it more recognizable, desirable, and stable everywhere. “From a psychological perspective, we understand that this is a response to a very deep human desire: to feel free, admired, and emotionally influential within the group,” Daprá adds.

What probably does change — from Madrid to, say, Mumbai — is how those traits are expressed. In one place, a person might seem cool by backpacking across Europe; in another, someone might show the same adventurous spirit by launching a startup or taking up a bold new hobby. “The behavior might look different, but the underlying traits are the same,” Pezzuti sums up.

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