People with a strong preference for bitter-tasting foods and drinks like coffee and tonic water could have psychopathic tendencies, according to a study. Psychologists have discovered that individuals with a liking for bitter tastes are more likely to exhibit signs of Machiavellianism, sadism, and narcissism.
The study, which was carried out by experts from Innsbruck University in Austria, was split in two separate experiments, reports the Daily Mail. They examined a total of 1,000 people, who had an average age of 35. They were shown a long list of foods with equal numbers of sweet, salty, sour and bitter foods and were then asked to complete four separate questionnaires.
The findings of this study are said to provide the ‘first empirical evidence that bitter taste preferences are linked to malevolent personality traits’ and are published in the journal Appetite.
