The faster the car, the smaller the stick shift.
Men with smaller-than-average penises are more likely to want to own high-performance sports cars, according to an engine-revving new study.
Psychologists from University College London deceived guys ages 18 to 74 into believing they didn’t measure up to other men — then asked them to rate their desire for luxury items such as flashy automobiles, according to research published last month.
During the study of 200 men, one group of participants was told that the average penis size worldwide is 7 inches while the other group was told it’s 4 inches when the real average is roughly 5.5 inches.
Researchers found that guys who believed their manhood was the bedroom equivalent of a Smart car wanted the fancy whips more.
“Perhaps there is just something specific linking cars and penises in the male psyche,” the study states. “[It] would explain the existence of the phallic car trope in everyday jokes, advertisements and academic discourse.”
The lust for sports cars was also linked to age, with men over 29 years old showing a stronger desire for the upscale whips, the researchers said.
“We found that males, and males over 30 in particular, rated sports cars as more desirable when they were made to feel that they had a small penis,” the scientists said.
Researchers ultimately theorized that the desire to own a pricey ride is linked to lower self-esteem.
“Under this hypothesis, feeling that one has a small penis is one type of low self-esteem, and buying a sports car would be just one type of purchase that might ameliorate that,” the study’s authors write.
Over the course of the borderline-mean study, researchers also manipulated participants’ self-esteem in other ways — by misleading them with false statistics about their personal finance and health relative to other guys.
But only those deceived about penis size showed an increased desire to own a sports car.
“The link between driving a fast sports car and having a small penis is a widespread cultural trope, discussed by academics from Freudian analysts to evolutionary theorists. For the first time, we show that it is grounded in a psychological truth,” the researchers conclude.