As a social scientist myself, this made me chuckle. First of all, you can never trust the media to understand scientific studies or to report them accurately. However, even if the reporter is interpreting the studies correctly, what the researchers "speculate" and "theorize" doesn't match their own data very well, as they also found the following contradictory evidence:
"But he also found
people with "conscientious" characters seek out pricey models, too.
"People with this type of personality are, as a rule, respectable, ambitious, reliable and well-organised," the statement said. "They take care of themselves and their health and often perform well at work."
They even say that they are speculating and theorizing as to the causes of what they were testing (which seems to be a very limited way of testing whether someone is "nice" or not).
Researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
speculated that the expensive car owners "felt a sense of superiority over other road users" and were less able to empathize with lowly sidewalk-dwellers.
"Disengagement and a lower ability to interpret thoughts and feelings of others along with feelings of entitlement and narcissism may lead to a lack of empathy for pedestrians" among costly car owners, they
theorized in the
study.
