It has puzzled philosophers, scholars and those aspiring to be cool for generations: what is it that makes someone cool? Now it appears that the alchemical code has finally been cracked.There are six specific attributes needed to be cool, according to a study published this week by the American Psychological Association.It found that cool people are generally perceived to be extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous, according to the survey of 6,000 participants from 12 countries including the USA, Australia and South Africa.So what does a cool person make of it?Chris Black, the co-host of the podcast How Long Gone (which is cool) and the founder of Done to Death Projects, a brand consultancy with fashion clients including Stüssy (also very cool), says that while the traits are “relatively accurate” for him, cool is something that cannot be easily outlined. “The je ne sais quoi of the whole thing has always been what I associate with cool,” he says.Does Black like being described as cool? “It’s become a pretty general word. I don’t think it has the sort of gravitas that it once had. There are things I don’t embody that I think make people cool. So it’s tough to think of yourself as it, no matter how much you want it.”Philippa Snow, a writer and cultural critic whose latest book, It’s Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me, explores female celebrities and the price of femininity, says trying to define cool is similar to defining charisma. “Like the famous quote about pornography, it’s tempting to say about both that you know it when you see it.”Some suggest that sprezzatura, an Italian word first used about by Baldassare Castiglione in 1528 and defined as “a certain nonchalance, to conceal all art and make what one does or say appear to be without effort” captures the earliest essence of what cool is.Cool as a characterisation originated from 1940s jazz culture, when the black musician Lester Young challenged racial norms by refusing to s