It is often joked that owners of sport cars are compensating for having a small penis. A new study puts some flesh on this bone.
A study from University College London demonstrates a link between men’s perception of their penis size and their degree of desire for various consumer products, including sports cars. This has not been peer reviewed yet, but is available.
With any good psychology experiment there was a bit of a trick. At the beginning of the experiment they were provided with various bits of information, including that the average penis length is 7 inches. As the actual average penis length is about 6 inches many of the men went into the test thinking their penises were shorter than average.
A significant proportion of the men over 30 rated sports cars as desirable items to have if they perceived their penis size to be below average. In other permutations where they perceived their penis size to be above average sports cars were less desirable.
The authors of the paper failed to reveal their penis size which would have been a canny move in making science more fun and more accessible.
What is peer review?
This is a process by which other people working in the same discipline take a detailed look at any studies. Usually this process is usually done before a paper is published so that scientific journals can be reasonably confident that any papers are credible, of good quality and worth publishing.