If you like bitter foods like black coffee or gin, you might be an antisocial sadist, according to research from a study out of Austria. Who knew that your favorite drink could really say this much about you?
The study, which was of two groups of American men and women, found that preferring bitter foods was associated with some pretty bad personality traits. Even further, these preferences can indicate that individuals may be more prone to “Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and everyday sadism,” according to The Tab.
One, what is everyday sadism?! And two, how on earth are we supposed to give up bitter alcohol (isn’t that, like, all liquor?), dark chocolate and coffee? Maybe psychopathic tendencies are the new black and we can all pretend everything’s fine.
Researchers asked participants to rank their taste preferences for foods with different tastes (bitter, sweet, salty, etc.), and then respond to prompts that would show their personalities.These prompts included statements such as “I have threatened people I know,” and “Given enough provocation, I may hit another person.” Participants ranked their agreement with these statements on a scale.
The combination of food preferences and personality assessment lead to the conclusion that people who say they like bitter foods in general may be more likely have psychopathic tendencies (Pacific Standard points out that the correlation didn’t hold when it came to liking specific bitter foods). Previous studies in this area found that “bitter taste experiences are causally linked to hostile thoughts and behavior,” the study authors wrote. Time to see which of your friends are really into bitter foods. No one can be trusted.