If you're cool here, you'll be cool everywhere; this study confirms it.

The term "cool" is in vogue, and despite cultural differences, the personality traits and values attributed to those we describe with that word are surprisingly similar around the world.

That's the conclusion of a study conducted with more than 4,200 people from twelve countries on all continents, led by the Adolfo Ibáñez University of Chile and published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. The research included participants from Australia, Chile, Germany, South Korea, China (both mainland and Hong Kong), Spain, the United States, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, and Turkey.

People who are perceived as cool are generally perceived as more extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open-minded, and autonomous. This is "a consistent pattern across countries, suggesting that the meaning of cool has crystallized into a similar set of values and traits globally," the study notes.

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The most common words used to express that something or someone is cool vary by country: bacán in Chile, chido or padre in Mexico, and guay in Spain. However, the term's use in English is becoming more common.

Despite significant cultural differences, the participants generally agreed on their descriptions of what it means to be cool. The team, which also included researchers from the University of Arizona and the University of Georgia, was "very" surprised by this agreement.

“Given how diverse cultures are, we expected the idea of cool to vary across countries. It's surprising that what's considered cool in Spain is practically the same in China, India, Australia, the United States, and other countries,” Pezzuti noted.

As the fashion, music, and film industries expand globally, the meaning of cool “has crystallized into a similar set of values and traits across the globe” and has become “more marketable,” the article notes.

The team focused on the term cool because some associate it with confidence and dominance; others, with rebellion. And some believe it has been so diluted that today it simply means "being liked," Pezzuti explained. Therefore, the goal was to go "beyond opinions and get real answers." Furthermore, she added, "being cool—or wanting to be cool—has a huge impact on people and society. It's important to understand what it really means."

Participants were asked to think of someone they considered cool, uncool, good, or not good, and then assessed that person's personality and values. The study also examined the differences between being cool and being good, as the latter category encompasses a wide range of positive meanings, beyond any specific trait. Understanding how cool differs from good can help us understand what makes someone or something distinctly cool, rather than simply positive in general.

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“For someone to be considered cool, they usually have to be likeable or admirable, which makes them similar to good people.” "Cool people," said Caleb Warren of the University of Arizona. "However, he added, cool people "tend to have other traits that aren't necessarily considered good in a moral sense, such as being hedonistic and powerful ."

People considered good, on the other hand, were perceived as more conformist, traditional, confident, warm, agreeable, universalist, conscientious, and calm.

Although the study doesn't directly analyze how the term "cool" has evolved over time, the team has some hypotheses about it, Pezzuti explained.

“Our theory holds that cool people serve a social function: they innovate and generate positive cultural change. Although what is considered cool has changed over the decades, I would say the foundation has remained the same.”

Some point out that the term began to be used among jazz musicians to describe those who played with a particular aesthetic, the researcher recalled. “The interesting thing is that those musicians were precisely the ones who innovated the style of cool jazz.”

The characteristics that “probably made them cool—such as being independent, open, hedonistic, adventurous, and possessing a certain amount of power—are the same ones we identified in our experiments,” he concluded.

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