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posted by martyb on Saturday November 03 2018, @01:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the dark-observations dept.

Are You Really a Psychopath If You Drink Black Coffee?

A study has linked bitter taste preferences to antisocial personality traits. But there's more to the headlines than meets the eye.

Do you drink your coffee black? According to quite a few headlines circulating online right now, that might make you a psychopath. The same goes for people who enjoy other bitter foods and beverages, like tonic water, kale, broccoli rabe, and radishes.

We were, of course, curious to know more, so we dug up the original study on which these claims are based. We also looked at some of the other research on taste preference and personality traits. It turns out, a fondness for bitter foods is linked to some pretty dark characteristics. But it’s also not as straightforward as some articles have made it out to be.

That study in the news right now—the one linking coffee to psychopathic personality traits[0]—was actually published in 2016, in the journal Appetite. The study authors, from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, wrote in their introduction that “some connection between taste preferences and personality has been established, yet the evidence is still scarce.”

[...] But back to the results: The researchers found that bitter taste preferences were “positively associated with malevolent personality traits,” especially everyday sadism and psychopathy. “Taken together, the results suggest that how much people like bitter-tasting foods and drinks is stably tied to how dark their personality is,” they wrote.

[...] a person’s taste preference explained less than 5% of his or her likelihood of having dark personality traits. “This is a very small percent in psychological research,” Meyers says.

In other words, “you are more likely to learn whether a person has aggressive or psychopathic tendencies in a restaurant by watching how they treat you or their waiter,” Meyers says, “compared to watching how much they enjoy their bitter foods and drink.”

[...] They do point out that a preference for bitter taste might be a useful “real-world behavioral correlate” of antisocial personality traits, similar to unusually intense eye contact. Nowhere in their study do they say, however, that liking bitter beverages automatically makes you a sadist or a psychopath.

So while these findings may make for fascinating conversation around the office coffee machine, they’re certainly no reason to start shunning your coworker who likes her brew black. And, by the way, coffee is good for you! And that’s especially true when you go easy on the cream and sugar.

I suppose one should question whether those traits are truly "anti" social, or merely asocial. Always, question authority.

[0Individual differences in bitter taste preferences are associated with antisocial personality traits (DOI 10.1016/j.appet.2015.09.031$)]


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 03 2018, @07:12PM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday November 03 2018, @07:12PM (#757356) Journal

    The thing about drinking coffee black is that you can taste the nuances in a variety the way you can't when cream and sweetener are mixed in. It's similar to drinking beer warm, as Germans do, vs drinking it cold as Americans prefer. Bitter flavors can contain a lot of complexity if you train your tastebuds to them.

    I find to do one or the other requires a mindset, though. When eating a diet with bitter notes, consuming dairy starts to feel greasy, heavy. Sugar is anathema. Conversely, eating lots of dairy, bread, and sweets makes me shy away from healthy foods because the flavors are too intense.

    So does that mean, according to TFA, that i'm crazy, or sane?

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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 03 2018, @09:59PM (2 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Saturday November 03 2018, @09:59PM (#757402) Journal

    I found that with IPA's and Porters: nice complexity of flavours.

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    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 03 2018, @10:02PM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday November 03 2018, @10:02PM (#757404) Journal

      Agreed. No apostrophe in IPAs though.

      Damn, I want to drink something with Citra hops in it.

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      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 04 2018, @02:46AM

        by Gaaark (41) on Sunday November 04 2018, @02:46AM (#757483) Journal

        Huh...never even thought about the punctuation on it, lol.

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