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Will Butler's avatar

While not entirely the same, cool vs warm seems thematically similar to warmth and competence in the stereotype content model. So much so that I wonder if “cool” and “good” in this paper could be substituted with “warm” and “competent” and the results would be the same if the subjects were surveyed again.

The fact that cool is cool everywhere in the world reinforces this, since warmth and competence are judged to be fundamental aspects of humans evaluate other humans.

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Steve Stewart-Williams's avatar

Hi Will - interesting. I think you’re right that cool and good overlap substantially with competent and warm.

Like you say, though, they’re not entirely the same. Although it’s hard to imagine someone being incompetent but cool, plenty of people are competent but not cool - e.g., the person who’s great at videogames or computer programming but who’s also socially awkward and easily embarrassed.

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Steven Fearing's avatar

This is very relevant to my investigations into the characteristics and framing of a "nice guy" vs. a "bad boy." Thanks for sharing.

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John's avatar

😎

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John's avatar

In my defence, someone had to 😉

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Steve Stewart-Williams's avatar

Yep - I was almost tempted to put that emoji in the title 😂

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