Whereas there has been a lot of talk about how the car you drive reflects your own personality traits, what about the actual personalities of the cars themselves? Well, just think “Disney” for a while and all will become clear, they have been responsible for bringing us such characters as Herbie and Lightning McQueen after all.
Cartoon drawings, special effects and camera trickery aside, recent studies have suggested, well, let’s say confirmed that people do see certain personality traits in different breeds, okay makes and models of motor car.
Film makers and toymakers have long toyed with our brains to make us believe that cars actually have faces (the window to the personality), but according to studies we didn’t actually take very much convincing of that anyhow.
It’s all about facial expressions – these are said to portray such character traits as anger, aggression, sadness or masculinity as well as the opposite traits.
Apparently 90 per cent of cars have a “”face”” which can be associated with either that of a human or that of an animal. It usually goes something like this:
• The headlights are the eyes of the face (no surprises there)
• The grill or the emblems can represent the nose
• Any additional air intake slots could be representations of the mouth
People in the studies were also asked to rate each of the models shown against 19 different character or personality traits like dominance, friendliness, gender etc., and whether they actually liked each car.
Around 96% of the people in the study agreed on whether a particular car was submissive or dominant. This high percentage means that there must be a very consistent message being sent out from the “”faces”” of these cars.
Cars which were felt to have dominant and powerful personality traits had elongated hoods, angular headlights indicative of a frown and lower slung, pronounced bodies. At the other end of this scale the cars which were classified as friendly, submissive, childlike and female had headlights which were closer to the midline of the design plus an upward shift towards the most lateral points of the car. This makes the car look like it is “”smiling”” – rather like The Love Bug himself.
It is not unusual for people to find “”faces”” in many inanimate objects these days. Our brains can pick out features in everything from clouds to trees, from the pattern in a stone wall to the way the shadows fall onto the cliff. The ability to “”read”” faces in this way is deeply rooted, giving us the ability to determine whether we are in danger or whether we can relax in the presence of a friendly face.
The findings of the study suggested however, that more people “”like”” cars which are masculine, mature, arrogant and rather angry as opposed to the friendlier, childlike motors.
This doesn’t necessary mean that drivers are drawn to buy the type of car which appeals to their personality, but it can give pedestrians some idea of the type of person sitting in the driving seat to pedestrians and other road users.
It doesn’t matter whether you are looking to buy new cars or used cars in Ontario, they’ve got a great selection to choose from at Metro Nissan Redlands.
Take a walk around the showroom and see if you can identify the personality of each car, and remember that just because you choose something which can be characterized as tough, mean and aggressive it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a secret warrior . . . although that just might be how the other road users see you.
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