7 ms·

Participants were 529 (289 men, 234 women, and 6 identified as other) undergraduate business students with a mean age of 18.14 years (SD = 1.19, range 16 to 37)

• altairprime 5mo ago
  I’ve noticed in my own car’s forums that over about ten years, most of the loud-seekers moved on to other cars while the remainder of us have much more diversity of gender and ‘loudness’ interests. Our sample size of self-nominated participants is also a couple thousand, not at all restricted to undergrads, and anecdotally parallels the study: those who seek loudness uniformly present as men, and in large majority tend to treat prosocial-community responses with disregard, hostility, or mockery. So, this study tracks :) but that doesn’t excuse the sampling bias of business-degrees (a field of graduates which includes corporate executives and daytraders, neither particularly well known for their social concerns), nor the self-selecting and anecdotal nature of my own separate experience. Perhaps we’ll see a wider study someday.
  • autoexec 5mo ago
    > those who seek loudness uniformly present as men, and in large majority tend to treat prosocial-community responses with disregard, hostility, or mockery. Is the loudness then just a big "fuck you" to the rest of the world or does it provide the loudness seeker with something besides the joy of knowing that they're pissing off everyone within earshot? If they were the last living person on Earth would they still go to the trouble to modify their vehicle for loudness?
    • m463 5mo ago
      I wonder too. Maybe it could be plumage to seek attention, maybe asserting "superiority", maybe dominating. security/insecurity? I do know sometimes when someone pulls up nearby with loud music coming out of their rolled-down windows... I wonder what putting on loud disney princess music would do?
    • simulator5g 5mo ago
      It's a pretty basic dopamine response, do something, hear something big happen, feel good. Real basic and, fairly universal. You may prefer a quieter car, but there is also a sound level that is below your preference. Your preference just happens to be different. You may prefer some other form of this concept. Maybe you like loud music. Maybe you like loud colors. Loud flavors. Maybe all of the above. That's fine, that's called a preference. The hostility comes from the perception that someone wants to take away your toy. Again, it's very very basic, the same thing you see if you try to take away an item from an animal that is engaged in a dopamine response with that item. Like a dog eating something. They will bite you or at least growl if you take it away.
      • appreciatorBus 5mo ago
        > The hostility comes from the perception that someone wants to take away your toy. Again, it's very very basic, the same thing you see if you try to take away an item from an animal that is engaged in a dopamine response with that item. Like a dog eating something. They will bite you or at least growl if you take it away. Sure, but now replace “toy” with, “peaceful Neighbourhood” The only reason anyone wants to take someone’s dumb truck away is because they made the the first move, destroying or significantly degrading something that other people enjoyed.
        • simulator5g 5mo ago
          Yes exactly! Replace toy with peaceful neighborhood. From each other's perspective, you both appear to have the same goals. How would you solve that without taking away someone else's peaceful neighborhood?
          • appreciatorBus 5mo ago
            I would say that if you want to drive loud fast cars, you’re welcome to do so, on a track intended for that purpose. Conversely, if you want to drive on public roads near children and where people live then you have to drive slow and quiet.
      • 5mo ago
    • binary132 5mo ago
      Same reason someone would wear bright red shoes or a loud outfit, I guess. Maybe to you it’s annoying, but maybe to them it’s cool, loud, and fun. Seems easy enough to understand, even if it’s a little antisocial. Same reason punks do punk stuff, kinda, could be one way to look at it.
      • subscribed 5mo ago
        That's a category error. One is a presentation and the other is noise pollution negatively impacting everyone else and the environment.
      • red-iron-pine 5mo ago
        the difference is that I can't hear your bright red outfit from 3 blocks away
        • altairprime 5mo ago
          *1 mile, here
    • ehnto 5mo ago
      I think it's a mix across the different kinds of people. For me my car isn't loud right now, but I do just genuinely enjoy the thrill and sound of the car in "track" setup. It's too loud to drive on the street but it's a thrill on track. The loudness isn't the point and I wish it were quieter, but the different exhaust components give it the raw visceral sound that I love. I guess you can think of it like the difference between music on the TV or music at a concert, the sound is literally different not just louder, and the context makes everything more visceral.
    • zthrowaway 5mo ago
      I think it’s worth pointing out that there’s a subset of people who have loud exhausts because the engine actually needs it. They’ve supped it up to an insane spec for performance reasons. You can’t have 500+ horsepower try to breathe through a straw. There are sports cars that are loud from the factory because of this. Now is it smart to do all of that just to drive 35mph in traffic? That’s another discussion :)
      • altairprime 5mo ago
        Somewhat second this: high flow exhausts that are also appropriately catted & muffled will lose a few horsepower compared to an equivalent exhaust that is not. Laguna Seca and Sonoma iirc and other raceways ended up putting into place strict decibel limits, but I believe the only city applying serious decibel enforcement for retail street cars right now is NYC (where flooring a Porsche can actually break the noise laws, as Porsche sells cars from factory that way). You certainly can make the straw Even Bigger to compensate but generally both drivers and manufacturers tend to take the cheaper-louder or maxxer-louder paths if vehicle horsepower is their primary concern, unless externally pressured otherwise.
  • ehnto 5mo ago
    Happened for my car community too, anecdotal of course. Two aspects I think, the clout chasers move on, and the remaining cohort are older with a bit more empathy for community and also better things to do than provoke the cops. No speaking for everyone with that last bit, there are still those that thrive on the chaos. There's also tech to solve for having your cake and eating it too. Get a valve, loud for track days, quiet for the commute.
• autoexec 5mo ago
  Self-reported data via an internet survey. Garbage science means garbage data. I wouldn't put any faith in these results. You can't swing a dead cat in a room full of business students without hitting a bunch of sadistic psychopaths anyway.
• Traubenfuchs 5mo ago
  > If they wanted real answers, they'd go to bike events. They‘d meet a bunch of 1) people actively being assholes and/or 2) people with a lack of basic empathy.
• mianos 5mo ago
  As a biker, there is sure a lot of peer pressure to have a louder bike. My s1k has the factory msport straight through akro muffler and a valve system that opens the larger exit, also bypassing the baffles in the 'lunchbox' underneath, at 7k. Meaning it's very quiet until it's being asked to go very fast. Replacing the cats and lunchbox with headers gives under 1hp on a 220hp bike. But, every meetup, multiple people are asking "when are you getting a proper exhaust system". Which is basically louder for no other reason but being loud.
  • tdeck 5mo ago
    I guess this explains why in Japan very few of the motorcycles are loud. It's something I was surprised by when moving here from the US. It seems like in the US most (or perhaps many more) riders are being deliberately antisocial?
    • zthrowaway 5mo ago
      A lot of the sports bikes I see around my area are operated by 18 year olds. Who at 18 in this country are being perfectly upstanding members of society? There’s always some stupidity in that phase of life. I wouldn’t put too much thought into it.
      • subscribed 5mo ago
        It's entirely possible to be mischievous or a prankster without being an asshole.
      • BobaFloutist 5mo ago
        Yeah, but a lot of the loudest are grey-haired men reclined on Harleys, alternating idling and revving in the middle of residential neighborhoods at all hours of day and night.
        • mianos 5mo ago
          As covered in SouthPark 'documentary' noted above. Worth a watch.