Sweetness may be contagious. An ever-growing number of research has revealed that the types of people with sweet teeth may also have sweet temperament.
“According to conceptual metaphor theory, metaphors such as “love is sweet” may be more than just a linguistic term. They can build a foothold to unconsciously guide our actions,” says Berlin neuropsychologist Michael Schaefer.
Sweet teeth and sweet temperament
in The research has been published In 2012, Psychologist Brian Meyer at Gettysburg University in Pennsylvania and his colleagues studied the potential connections between sweets and temperament. They confirmed that people generally believe that people with sweet teeth are generally more comfortable.
In other tests, the team gave some participants sweet chocolate, and others sweet foods like crackers, and the former was It’s likely to help People who are in trouble. They also found that those who publicly stated their preferences for sweet foods were more likely than those who didn’t like sweet foods to help clean the city after the flood.
Not all researchers agreed to these findings. In 2014, Michael Ashton, a psychologist at Brock University in Canada, and his colleagues. I tried to replicate Meier’s 2012 findings by performing similar experiments use far more participants. They could not find a strong connection between their sweet food preferences and their pleasant personality.
“We conclude that prosocial personality is not essentially related to sweet taste preferences,” Ashton and his team wrote in their study.
Nevertheless, Other researchers We conducted a similar test and found a link between consent and the taste of sweet foods.
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Cultural differences
Not all cultures recognize food the same way. Not all cultures have the same temperament. To address potential cultural differences, Meier and his colleagues wanted to approach the questions using participants from different countries.
“Culturals can vary in both taste preferences and temperament,” says Schaefer, who worked at Meier recently. study It is published on Journal of Research in Personality.
Their team tested participants from China, Germany, Mexico and the US. They asked people to rate them in favor of salty, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy foods, and sweet foods they like. These were then compared with results collected from established surveys examining the personality factors of the “Big Five.” Consent is one of five characteristics examined from this test. They found that the link between taste and personality is replicated in other cultures.
Schafer points out that the study has several drawbacks. Participants were asked to explain their personality. This may differ from how others see it.
“In other words, people who like sweets may only see themselves as more social and sweet, but this may not reflect their true behavior or views by others,” he says.
Sweet teeth may not only affect consent. Schaefer said that in some countries, salty food preferences may also be related to consent. However, the evidence is not very strong.
Sweets and childhood
Schaefer says there are several reasons why taste and consent are linked, but these are mostly speculative at this point. One of them may start as a child. Some people may learn to relate the sweetness of breast milk and baby formulas to social compassion. This is a correlation that lasts until adulthood.
Or maybe it’s even back to our childhood.
“Sweet food preferences may be innate to all of us, because sweet foods provide a major source of energy and by preferring this flavor, we can look for plants with high glucose available,” says Schaefer. “In addition, sweet foods provide information about the potential beneficial effects of food, as opposed to the bitter taste that is toxic.”
These feelings can lead to a link between sweet preferences and sociability, or approachability. “Given this link, we may want consistency in our perceptions, so we tend to be more socially active when we like sweet tastes,” says Schaefer.
Studying personal health
For some researchers, finding a simple correlation between food preferences and temperament is more than that. Some are studying the relationship between obesity and sweets, while others are studying how having sweet teeth puts someone in a romantic way.
” Given that the psychological effects of sweet taste include prosocial and outgoing behavior, we might speculate that training to improve sweet taste may change depressive symptoms, overweight and obesity,” wrote Schafer and Eileen Garbow in 2021. Topic research.
However, they warned that “studies on psychological sweet effects are still in their early stages,” and that “it remains unclear whether psychological effects can be used to improve individual health.”
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Joshua Rapp Learn is an award-winning DC-based science writer. As an expatriate Albertan, he has contributed to many scientific publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Scientist, Hakai and more.
