Hybrid cars are good for the environment, but it turns out they’re really good for something else, too: raising baby boomers’ self esteem. This is great because as a generation, they’ve always been sorely lacking in that department.
That’s right, acid flashbacks and trend pieces about millennial narcissism aren’t the only things lifting the spirits of middle-aged Americans these days. Totally souped up hybrid cars are making consumers over the age of 60 feel much better about themselves because of three variables: social value, price and quality, according to DailyFusion.net. Social value is fancy science-speak for “making you look cool.”
“The findings suggest that elderly consumers are concerned about how they appear to others when driving a hybrid car,” the Baylor University researchers wrote, according to DailyFusion. This is surprising, because how they appear to others is clearly the last thing on older consumers’ minds when they wear Asics running shoes with their jeans.
Still, the 60-and-up crowd may still have one up on us in the morals department: professor Jay Yoo, Ph.D., tells DailyFusion that older consumers are more inclined to behave in a pro-environment way than younger generations are. Whatever, hippies.
