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: Ill 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 theres 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 youre bitter any more than you should make the assumption that youre 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 its 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.
My favorite saying: i like my coffee just like my women, hot, black and strong. Of course my caucasian wife slaps me every time.
Like caramel ruins apples and butter ruins corn on the cob, milk and sugar ruin the intricate notes of the different coffee varieties. My only exceptions are coffee candy and jamocha shakes....and I’m not some psycho nutcase.
“Science Says...”
As I eat 90% cocoa chocolate. I am also very timid and meek. I hate confrontation and avoid arguments at any cost. Yet I enjoy bitter vegetables, strong cheese, and painfully spicy food.
Coffee on your cereal ....... killer !
Hahaha. I’ll have to use that one!
The study must have had the benefit of a government grant. They had to come up with some kind of results; even if it was all BS.
My two favorites were:
I like my coffee like I like my women, cold and bitter.
And, I like my coffee like I like my women, ground up, stuffed in a burlap sack, and thrown over the back of a donkey. :-)
I’ve always preferred cream. One day a guy told me that coffee was good for you - unless you added cream, which made the combination bad. So I tried black coffee for a while. Not only did I not like it, but my white cup started staining really bad and I had to wash it a lot.
Then I wondered what it was doing to my teeth.
I went back to cream. I much prefer it. The two flavors compliment each other. The cream neutralizes the bitterness, allowing the good qualities of the flavor come out. At least for me...
Well, this is DEFINITELY on topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ovhbT-Iulc&t=6s
“If Coffee commercials were honest”
No wonder my dog doesn’t like me, well before I ended his misery.
Chocolate Frosted Flakes, Extra Sugar, Coffee. BOC- Breakfast of Champions.
Good coffee is not bitter. These people make the best motorcycles in the world but they know zilch about coffee.
I think this beats the ketchup pouring “Grant”.
Before I met my wife, I used to joke that I ended up dating women like Apple pie: sweet, warm, not too tart, and flaky. I described one — to her own assessment that it was undeniable — as “flakier than a box of instant potatoes.”
If you were a true psychopath, that would have been your neighbors dog.
Black Turkish coffee is bestif there aint mud at the bottom, it aint coffee. I like dogs. My neighbors have no cats.
You are right, fresh ground beans of decent varieties, like Papua New Guinea, or Tanzanian Peaberry, are very smooth and not bitter at all. Cheap coffee can be very bitter. If it needs cream it’s a lousy coffee.
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