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Runaway1956 [soylentnews.org] writes:

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.
By Amanda MacMillan November 01, 2018

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 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666315300428 [sciencedirect.com] to psychopathic personality traits—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.”

More here: https://www.health.com/food/black-coffee-psychopath [health.com]

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.

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

Original Submission