Like Bitter Food, Is It Really A Personal Sign?

Have you ever wondered why some people like food or drinks that taste so bitter? For example, concentrated black coffee, dark chocolate with high cocoa levels or drinks like gin and tonic? As it turns out, there has been research that reveals an interesting relationship between preference for the bitter taste and certain personality traits, including psychopathic traits.

Reporting from the New York Post page, research conducted by the University of Innsbruck, Austria, involved nearly a thousand Americans who were asked to fill out a survey on food and beverage flavor preferences, such as sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. In addition, they also fill out personality tests that assess characteristics such as psychopathy, disability, aggression, and sadistic.

The results were quite surprising. People who enjoy food and drinks with a bitter taste tend to exhibit dark personality traits, such as sadistic and psychopathic. This means that those who like bitter things may have a tendency to feel happy with things related to cruelty or antisocial behavior.

Sadism is a condition in which one feels happy to see or cause the suffering of others, even in situations that seem normal or not extreme. They may enjoy bloody films, feel interested in physical combat, or even find torture interesting.

Meanwhile, psychopaths are personality disorders characterized by a lack of empathy, a low emotional response, and a tendency to commit actions that harm others without guilt. Psychopaths are often difficult to recognize because they can appear very charismatic on the surface.

Experts suspect the preference for a bitter taste reflects one's tolerance for a strong and unusual sensation. This sensation may indicate the courage to face discomfort or extreme experiences, which are indirectly associated with characters who are more daring to take risks and even tend to be aggressive.

But it's important to remember that this relationship is not an absolute rule. Not everyone who likes the bitter taste automatically has a psychopathic or sadistic trait. This is just a tendency found in research and still needs a lot of further study.