Study suggests certain foods are linked to anti-social traits

A study has claimed that certain foods can indicate your personality traits – and it's bad news for black coffee drinkers.

The 2016 investigation resurfaced online, and people are losing their minds after it suggested that some preferences could be linked to psychopathic and sadistic traits.

The researchers from the University of Innsbruck in Austria analysed over 900 participants and their favourite food and drinks. They were then given a personality test that delved into anti-social traits such as psychopathy, narcissism, aggression and sadism.

They found a link between the "increased enjoyment of bitter foods and heightened sadistic proclivities."

Such foods included black coffee, gin and tonic, and dark chocolate.

"In two studies, we investigated how bitter taste preferences might be associated with anti-social personality traits," the study explained.

"Two US American community samples self-reported their taste preferences using two complementary preference measures and answered a number of personality questionnaires assessing Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, everyday sadism, trait aggression, and the Big Five factors of personality," it continued.

"The results of both studies confirmed the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits, with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy."

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Elsewhere, it's not looking too great for BMW drivers either.

According to Scrap Car Comparison - which asked 2,000 drivers to complete a 12-question survey that measures the extent to which people have psychopathic traits - BMW drivers scored highest, with an average 12.1 out of a possible 36 points.

In comparison, the average score across the participants was 6.6. Meanwhile, Audi drivers narrowly missed the top spot scoring 11.7.

Traits measured included superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth and a lack of remorse or guilt. Scores between 0-18 indicated that there was no psychopathy while a score between 19-26 showed it was “possible”. Scores over 27 revealed that psychopathy was “likely”, so all of the drivers still showed no signs of psychopathy despite the range in results.

Fiat owners were the third most likely to be psychopaths with 7.0, while Skoda owners were very much not psycho, scoring an average of just 3.2.

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