Friendliness is the new cool, survey finds:

It's no longer cool to be cool. Now it's more about being warm.

Such is the perplexing conclusion reached by two University of B.C. graduate students in the psychology department who set out to determine what constitutes coolness in 2006.

They found that contrary to what most parents might guess -- even fear -- is that qualities such as friendliness, egalitarianism, fairness, honesty, passion, even niceness, are considered cool according to the prevailing tastes of today.