Swing a cat in a coffee shop and you’re bound to hit a Mac user: that guy or gal with the cool haircut and white earphones and  nose high in the air.

A new survey confirms what you may have suspected all along about that Mac user: He’s liberal, he’s progressive and he thinks he’s better than you.

A survey conducted earlier this year by Internet ad network Mindset Media found that Mac users are “more liberal, less modest and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large.”

The study sampled 7,500 respondents and found that people who fit this description are 60 percent more likely than people in the general population to buy a Mac or Mac products.

We hit up a few Mac users in Lincoln to see if they fit this description.

“As a generalization, I think that’s probably an accurate description of Mac users,” said Leslie Dickey, 22, who was fiddling around on her iBook downtown. “Sure, I hate to say that.”

She said she thinks many Mac users are drawn to the image and the more visually appealing design of the computer compared to others.

“But I don’t like that there’s a stereotype of Mac users being more hip,” she said. “I think you should use a computer because it benefits what you need.”

Mac user Travis Thieszen, 26, said the description is “probably somewhat accurate, somewhat not.

“I think people with Macs give off a successful type of image,” he said.

But are Mac users smarter than everyone else?

“Well,” Thieszen said, “that’s a stereotype I like to propagate.”

Reach Micah Mertes (full disclosure: He’s a Mac user) at 473-7395 or mmertes@journalstar.com.