People who ate chocolate were more likely to volunteer to help another person in need, compared to those who ate a cracker or no food.
People with sweet tooth may have a sweeter personality???
Will Eating Sweets Make You Sweeter?
“You are what You eat”- is a popular proverb that has been commonly used in diet related tips. However, many may not agree and would like to inquire more. Similarly researchers of U.S. had conducted a study to find link between food preference and personality. The study was recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. According to its finding
If you have a sweet tooth, you may have a sweeter personality
U.S. researchers conducted a series of experiments that compared people’s tastes for sweets with their behaviour.
It is been found in one test that people who ate chocolate were more likely to volunteer to help another person in need, compared to those who ate a cracker or no food. Another test found that people tend to believe that people who like sweet foods are also more agreeable or helpful, but not more extroverted or neurotic.
Researcher’s view
“Our results suggest there is a real link between sweet tastes and pro-social behavior. Such findings reveal that metaphors can lead to unique and provocative predictions about people’s behaviors and personality traits,” Michael D. Robinson, a psychology professor at North Dakota State University in Fargo, said in a university news release.
“It is striking that helpful and friendly people are considered ‘sweet’ because taste would seem to have little in common with personality or behavior. Yet, recent psychological theories of embodied metaphor led us to hypothesize that seemingly innocuous metaphors can be used to derive novel insights about personality and behavior,” Brian Meier, an associate professor of psychology at Gettysburg College, in Pennsylvania, said in the news release.
“Importantly, our taste studies controlled for positive mood so the effects we found are not due to the happy or rewarding feeling one may have after eating a sweet food,” he added.
Meier, noting that the findings might not apply across all cultures, said similar cross-cultural research would be informative.
More information
The American Psychological Association has more about personality.
source: http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=658033