Apple has a business that relies on having superficial customers, and people wanting to show off things as a status symbol. Just like clothing, cars and so on.
Crikey, since Apple's success with the iPhone everyone else wants to do the same. Look at Samsung as a prime example.
An iPhone may not be cheap, but compared to buying a flash car to show off, it's affordable for all - especially financed over two years where the eye watering cost of ownership is disguised quite well.
I suspect, given how many cracked screens I see on iPhones and Galaxy S7 edges, that some people don't quite have the disposable income to fix their phones when they break, which reminds me of my teenage years when people had flashy cars but couldn't always quite afford to keep them road legal, or insure them.
Chances are that people who have a flagship Android phone are just as likely to show off and be shallow, while those who have more mundane phones that are seen just as tools of daily life are more down to earth and, likely, honest.
But there are always going to be generalisations that don't apply to all and I don't think surveys like this serve much purpose except to start flame wars and trolling, which I guess ups the page views.
Now, working in the media, you'll see more people with a MacBook than anything else, although I can see signs of this changing. The MBP has very polarised opinions, and I think that Microsoft is now being spoken of as a new 'cool' brand, if you can believe that, and Apple's problem is that it can't afford to go out of fashion.
People who spend thousands on something to boost their own egos are extremely profitable and Apple can't lose them. Nor can any luxury brand as it's a very slippery slope from there on. Not that I think Apple couldn't fix things quite quickly and long before it really made a dent on revenue.