A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism • Hacker News Board

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#21

Post by binary132 » Thu, May 14, 2026, 2:53 AM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #12

altairprime wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

> 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…

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.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#22

Post by appreciatorBus » Thu, May 14, 2026, 3:09 AM UTC

simulator5g wrote: post #16

autoexec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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, th…

> 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.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#23

Post by rixed » Thu, May 14, 2026, 4:12 AM UTC

simulator5g wrote: post #16

autoexec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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, th…

  Real basic and, fairly universal. You may prefer a quieter car, but there is also a sound level that is below your preference.

I do not believe this to be true. My feeling is: some people (or rather: some people in some occasions) enjoy to be noticed, and some others enjoy not to be noticed.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#24

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, May 14, 2026, 4:17 AM UTC

simulator5g wrote: post #16

autoexec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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, th…

I like loud music, but I have headphones and don't try to impose it on everybody else. There are probably tons of antisocial activities that promote a dopamine reponse, but most of us know better.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#25

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, May 14, 2026, 4:20 AM UTC

My friends and I always assumed it correlates with a small penis.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#26

Post by ehnto » Thu, May 14, 2026, 4:27 AM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #8

Animats wrote: post #6

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). Sigh. A sample of convenience. Psychology remains the study of undergraduates. If they wanted real answers, they'd go to bike events.

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 te…

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.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#27

Post by mrandish » Thu, May 14, 2026, 4:29 AM UTC

I'm not a car guy, so I used to think such ear-damaging decibels were necessary for performance but have since learned it's not required even for ultra-high performance road cars that can go >200 mph. While a 12 cylinder Lamborghini Aventador is louder than a Hyundai, when both are idling at a stop light, it's actually barely louder from 100 feet away. And yet people with real supercars almost never modify them to be louder than stock.

My wife is a serious car girl and drives her beloved McLaren well enough to be in the top five on amateur days at Sonoma Raceway. She's taught me that different supercars each have their own signature sound and to her it'd be sacrilegious to mess with such iconic perfection. :-)

She's in a club of other supercar owners that puts on a huge charity car show where members bring over $100M of exotics - and none of those cars are nearly as loud as the sonic assault from one of the hopped up $10k rust buckets that occasionally pulls up next to my wife at a stop light and makes our ears bleed revving their engine. They always want to race "the cute girl in the McLaren" but she never takes the bait. When I asked why, she just scoffed that they're all bark and no bite. Plus she has no idea if the driver is race-trained, if their rust-bucket is even safe to be near at high-speeds or if they have insurance. Her favorite line about engine noise is from when she was picking up her car at the McLaren factory in England. While track-testing it with one of the race engineers, he joked "as engineers, we see excess noise as embarrassing because it's wasted horsepower we failed to transfer to the axle."

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#28

Post by ehnto » Thu, May 14, 2026, 4:37 AM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #12

altairprime wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

> 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…

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.

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#29

Post by tdeck » Thu, May 14, 2026, 5:28 AM UTC

mianos wrote: post #20

Animats wrote: post #6

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). Sigh. A sample of convenience. Psychology remains the study of undergraduates. If they wanted real answers, they'd go to bike events.

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…

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?

Re: A desire for a loud car correlates with higher scores on psychopathy and sadism

#30

Post by autoexec » Thu, May 14, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

rixed wrote: post #23

simulator5g wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, th…

Real basic and, fairly universal. You may prefer a quieter car, but there is also a sound level that is below your preference. I do not believe this to be true. My feeling is: some people (or rather: some people in some occasions) enjoy to be noticed, and some others enjoy not to be noticed.

Stealth mode might be occasionally useful, but personally, I want my car to be just loud enough that I can tell when it's running. I've used cars where I couldn't always tell and it sometimes resulted in stupid mistakes like leaving them running when I didn't mean to, or trying to start a car that was already running. It can also be helpful for people outside of the car to be able to hear when a car is approaching. I've never wanted a car to be louder than necessary for those reasons though and whatever noise it makes it shouldn't be annoying or intrusive.