Black coffee consumers can portray psychopathic tendencies, research reveals

By Phoenix Cronin

Does your crush drink their coffee black? Then maybe beware... Credit: Pexels

If you prefer black coffee you may well be a psychopath, at least, that’s what research published in the journal ‘Appetite’ suggests.

The research was conducted at the University of Innsbruck in Austria and is titled "Individual differences in bitter taste preferences are associated with antisocial personality traits".

They found that those who drink their coffee black and prefer other bitter tastes were more likely to have sadistic, narcissistic, and psychopathic tendencies. The research collates with several other studies including one that looked at the connection between preferences for sweet foods and personality traits that were both agreeable and neurotic.

Furthermore, another research paper found that bitter tastes preferences can be linked to harsher moral judgements, as well as hostile thoughts and behaviours.

The study’s authors performed two separate experiments on the same group of people. First, they looked at 500 men and women, who were given a list of foods with an equal number of sweet and bitter items. They were told to rate the items in order personal preference.

Afterwards, they asked the participants to complete personality questionnaires, which measured aggression, psychopathy, emotional stability, and finally “everyday sadism”. The researchers concluded that bitter taste preferences were “positively associated with malevolent personality traits, especially robustly with everyday sadism.”

In summary, they found that there was a “relation between [the] increased enjoyment of bitter food and heightened sadistic proclivities”.

For those who believe in physical health, a coffee without sugar and milk is a good thing – independently, coffee has some serious health benefits, in fact, recent research suggests people should drink three cups a day, it also is a way to cut calorie intake and for the coffee fanatics it is a chance to taste coffee in its purest form.

The study’s authors confess that the “link is negligible compared with other, more well-established predictors of psychopathy”, such as genes or personality traits.

UKPC psychotherapist Emma Azzopardi said: “the study is more about gathering media attention than hard science. This is a shame because I feel that it only adds to the misunderstanding and ignorance to an already complex area of mental health.”

Tom Gregory, a diagnosed psychopath based in London, reiterated this, saying that his taste preferences aren’t representative of his disorder.

“I do drink black coffee, but because it’s easy and healthy, though I like sweet things as well. I don’t think my mental disorder has any impact.”

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