If you surfed through Yahoo!’s home page this morning, you may have noticed the good news for Toyota Prius-driving men everywhere. A study by General Motors announced that 88 percent of women polled said they’d rather talk to a guy who drives a new fuel-efficient vehicle than a gas-guzzling sports car.
But hold on a second before you run out and buy a hybrid, because that number could be suspect. Self-reported survey data is known for being notoriously problematic; people want be liked, even by strangers they’ll never meet again, so they’re more likely to say what they think will impress the questioner. Green may be in style, but what the GM study may really being showing, unfortunately for heterosexual male tree-huggers, is not that women everywhere want to talk to, date, or marry environmentally responsible men. Rather, it could be that they know they’re supposed to want that.
