Study: People who like big exhaust are sadists and psychopaths

According to a new study from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, if you have a car with a heavily modified exhaust system, you may be a terrible person.

The study, first discovered by cars and drivers, examined people's attitudes to big cars. Those who enjoyed loud exhaust systems tended to be male, with higher scores of personality traits associated with sadism and psychosis. 

The study, commissioned by Professor Julie Aitken Schermer, was interested in what kind of person would want a bigger car than normal, surveyed 529 business students. They asked whether they thought loud cars were cool, whether they saw their cars as an extension of their own, and whether they changed their cars to make exhaust sounds louder.

Participants also took a short Dark Tetrad personality survey to measure their preferences for personality traits such as narcissism, psychosis, and maneuverability. Narcissism scores were generally lower, while loud pipe fans tended to have higher scores for psychopaths and sadism.

The study focused only on cars, with the exception of motorcycles and pickup trucks. Other studies have pointed to perceptions that larger vehicles are more aggressive, so the correlation between sadism and psychosis is that where larger vehicles were included

not all loud exhaust sounds are created the same way as car and driver notes. There's a difference between enjoying the demonic exhaust sounds of the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon and making loud noises to neighbors in the middle of the night. That's what it is for the programmable exhaust mode.