Posted on 11/04/2018 1:03:31 AM PST by vannrox
I have a friend who always drinks his coffee black with no sugar (and is rather pretentious about it, mind you), and whenever the server asks him if he wants milk, he makes the same joke: “I’ll take it black, like my soul.” Now, a new study published in the journal Appetite suggests there may be something to that.
Researchers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria asked more than 1,000 men and women to self-report their taste preferences and answer a questionnaire that assessed their Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, everyday sadism, trait aggression, and the Big Five factors of personality.
What they found that those who preferred bitter flavors often exhibited qualities that make them appear bitter themselves. In addition, these people often revealed sadistic or even psychopathic characteristics. In other words, evidence shows that people with psychopathic tendencies tend prefer their coffee black. According to the findings:
“The present research has demonstrated that bitter taste preferences are associated with 549 more pronounced malevolent personality traits, especially robustly with everyday sadism. [The results] confirmed the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits, with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy…The data thereby provide novel insights into the relationship between personality and the ubiquitous behaviors of eating and drinking by consistently demonstrating a robust relation between increased enjoyment of bitter foods and heightened sadistic proclivities.”
The paper noted that the opposite has also been found to be true, citing previous research that indicates that those who prefer sweet tastes are “sweet” themselves to the extent that they tend to exhibit more “prosocial” personality characteristics. In general, the entire study argues that there’s something to the saying, “You are what you eat.” Again, from the report:
“Sensation seeking is one of the personality characteristics that has often been associated with individual differences in taste preferences. For example, people high in sensation seeking tend to have an increased preference for spicy food. Additionally, caffeine consumption is positively correlated with other facets of sensation seeking behavior, such as experience seeking and disinhibition. Increased preferences for sweet foods appear to co-occur with higher levels of agreeableness. Similarly, a preference for sweet white wine over dry white wine is associated with more trait neuroticism and lower levels of openness.”
Of course, none of this is determinate, and if you like bitter food, you should not make the assumption that you’re “bitter” any more than you should make the assumption that you’re sweet because you like candy.
However, it does make sense that the stimuli that we seek from what we eat and drink would correlate to the stimuli that we seek in life. And it’s worth noting that, of the correlations examined, “general bitter taste preferences were the strongest predictor compared to the other taste preferences. Taken together, the results suggest that how much people like bitter tasting foods and drinks is stably tied to how dark their personality is.”
And for more eye-opening science you should know, see here to find out which personality traits have been proven to extend your life.
The folks who do these "studies" must be giggling like fools as they see money come in to pay their way for a bit longer and all they have to do is have fun going through some motions and writing a paper on what they want us to think they found out....
“As I eat 90% cocoa chocolate ...”
Funny post. LOL
what a steaming pile
Happy to report that I like my coffee very strong, but sweet, with lots of that fake powdered creamer stirred in.
I also recoil at lemons and grapefruit.
What does it mean about my personality traits if I always need to go to bathroom five minutes after drinking coffee?
Science Says needs to spend a Week with me ... they will come away with at least 100 new theory’s about the Neanderthal, a Cheese Shop and a Parrot.
Guaranteed
This is an especially poor write up of a study that itself is seeking a one-sided perspective.
For example, those who lean toward sweet over bitter are less open to new experiences, more compliant, and more neurotic, too.
Re: cream in coffee.
My dad drinks it that way. I used to, but not for years.
I heard it as “hot, black and sweet.” Spoken in correct dialect, the first person singular, present tense of the verb “to like” is “likes”. As in, “I likes my coffee same way I likes my women, hot, black and sweet.”
There, corrected.
Any article that opens with the observation "Now, a new study published in the journal [of irreproducible results]" is pretty much just a waste of time.
Black Rifle Coffee should respond.
Forcefully!
Because of some good advice I switched to only black coffee when I drove truck and my stomach turned. I still drink black coffee but I like the novelty flavored coffees that you can find in gas stations.
As far a the study goes...meh. I just hope tax money didn’t pay for that dreck.
“ground up, stuffed in a burlap sack, and thrown over the back of a donkey. :-)”
That’s a new one. Very funny!
I like my coffee as I like my women.
Cold, and bitter.
It could just mean you’re Norwegian, too.
“My only exceptions are coffee candy and jamocha shakes.”
I’m like that. I can only drink black coffee. To me, it’s not bitter, but smooth. And it must be freshly brewed. Old, burned coffee is the worst.
Exceptions are coffee ice cream, the coffee slushie thing at Chick-Fil-A, and coffee candy when I travel, made from real coffee, if I can find it in the store. I don’t like to drink too much when traveling, and I don’t want the coffee withdrawal headache. I don’t really like the candy, but I consider it medicinal.
Ah well. I’ve been called lots of things
My first tour of Germany I drank my coffee with Afrika Korp Rum whenever possible. It was always possible...
Science says! SCIENCE SAYS! Science Sez!
Please. A grad student with a brace of monkeys does not constitute science. Here that Al Gore?
And what the heck, here
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