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Subscribe to RSSHaving a bad taste in your mouth from food or drink can lead you to making stronger and harsher judgments of other people and their behaviors, suggests new research.
In the study, after participants tasted something they considered physically disgusting, they were more likely to think something was morally disgusting. Interestingly, this effect was significantly stronger in people who were politically conservative than in those with liberal views.
The experiment, published in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science, was the first to examine how taste perception affects moral judgments. It recruited 57 college students (41 women, 16 men) and asked them to drink a bitter-tasting liquid (Swedish bitters, an herbal remedy for digestion), a sweet beverage (berry punch) or a neutral fluid (water). Students drank one swift shot of the drink before doing a moral judgment task and had a second shot halfway through it so the liquid's taste lingered in their mouths.
During the task, participants were asked for their impressions of six morally murky behaviors, from a man eating his dead dog (!) to second cousins sleeping together to a lawyer trawling for potential clients in a hospital. They rated their opinions on a scale from 0 meaning "not at all morally wrong" to 100 for "extremely morally wrong."
Scientists found that volunteers who drank the disgusting, bitter beverage also expressed the most disapproval of the moral situations. Their average rating for the six scenarios was 78 (out of 100) compared to 62 in those who downed water and 60 in folks who threw back sweet shots.
"I was a bit surprised that the sweet beverage did not elicit significantly kinder judgments when compared to the water condition [which was the control]," says Kendall Eskine, a doctoral candidate in the psychology department of Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, NY, and the lead author of this study. "I was hoping that sweeter beverages would make people sweeter," he says, but it did not perhaps because the berry punch was more tart than sweet, something Eskine plans to change in follow-up research.
Even so, Eskine says that our sensory experiences, such as taste, play a very important role in our cognitive lives, even in areas like morality, which have typically been considered "reason-based" fields. These bodily experiences, he suspects, might be biasing people's thoughts and judgments.
Although physical disgust appeared to influence a person's moral disgust, scientists don't yet know how long the effect lasts. "That's one of our top questions going forward," Eskine says.
Researchers also asked study participants about their political leanings. They found that conservatives were significantly harsher in their moral decision-making after the bitter drink than those given the sweet or control beverage. Other studies have suggested that people with conservative views are more sensitive to disgust than liberals.
One of the moral foundations conservatives rely on is "purity," explains Eskine. If conservatives care more about purity than liberals, then "inducing disgust [in conservatives] will activate their purity norms, which in turn can influence their perception of moral events," he says.
What's unclear, says Eskine, is whether liberals have a similar purity foundation but in different domains, such as the purity of their food.
What do you think of this research, readers? (Before answering that -- maybe take a gulp of some sweet soda or juice.)
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I love this study! (maybe because I just ate something yummy...) I would have to wonder, though, about their mention of using a 'sweeter' beverage in the future, because often something that is too-sweet is also disgusting. Just a thought. I also thought it was interesting that the author of this article referred to morality as "reason-based"... I always thought it was just the opposite. Maybe I'm confusing reason with logic? Anyway I'm definitely cranky after a bad meal...better start eating good desserts!
Are we to take that if a liberal is not drinking something disgusting, he or she might be approving of a man eating his own dead dog?
Is this why health nuts always seem so harsh and judgemental?
What the heck are the Right Wingers/Fundies drinking?
Unsweetened Kool-aid.
No wonder they're so bitter.... ;)
Completely makes sense- crappy taste-> crappy mood-> crappy impressions! Interesting to see how long the effect lasts.
It can be reversal too from what this study shows.
After participants ate something physically disgusting to do in public, they were more likely to think something was morally disgusting then what they did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=az4qASdPD4Y#t=0s
Who comes up with the ideas for these studies? OK - I know that answer. A better question is whether these "researchers" (i.e. PhD candidates or professors who usually can't teach) aren't required to submit a statement as to how the results of their proposed research might actually be useful to anyone for anything. . .
The only possible useful take-away I can imagine coming from this would be to bring a handful of really nice candies with me to any future job interviews and be sure to offer on to everyone I meet.
You really don't think its important to know that moral judgment and eating something bitter are related to one another?
This is the kind of research which leads to insight about how the brain functions, which is important in business, medicine, emotional health, politics, raising children. . .
You really shouldn't post on something you know absolutely nothing about.
miker - HAhahaha you are totally a republican! not hating or anything but you are arent you?!? HAHAHAHA
So what bitter taste was in your mouth, Miker?
One study does not a theory make.
Actually, the theory comes before the study usually....the study is used to validate the theory.
Scientific studies are made to disprove a theory. In the process of proving something, one automatically causes a bias.
No, Richard's right. Based on the scientific method, scientific studies are used to prove or disprove a hypothesis. The hypothesis comes first. After several extensive experiments and testing, the end result could yield a theory. Theories are hypotheses proven to be true.
I suppose the lesson learned, again, is that our "rational" minds are not all that cool, distant and unaffected by our immediate environment.
The useful take-away is not a prescription for how to influence those around us, but to be aware of what is affecting our own decision making, and to take those effects into account.
I'd be interested to see if the study was conducted with subjects in their 40s, 50s, 60s, were as susceptible to the influence of the taste of the test liquids. So much psychological theory is based on the results of tests conducted with college students in their late teens to mid-twenties, since they're a readily-available population of test subjects. Are older people with more life experience perhaps less influenced by exposure to the sensory stimuli?
Older people would also be more likely to have suffered some loss in their ability to taste and to smell.
@Philusedtobake
That is an interesting question. I'm sure that the older the subject the less they'll be influenced but who knows.
A hypothesis comes before the study. The study is used to evaluate the hypothesis. Theory is generally the product of doing this many times over related hypotheses.
they would close to the same results with smell
Hey Mike, put down the disgusting beverage before you comment ya fundie.
I find it superficial and flimsy that the only "morality" triggers used in the test were those that are found to be historically loathsome or questionable to conservatives, eg prurience and ambulance-chasing lawyers.
Maybe the next study should include the numerous morality categories with which liberals are concerned, such as the environment, political correctness, the economic classes, and health & safety regulations.
Also, I see conservatives find cousin-marrying to be more loathsome than the liberals. Must be that's where all the inbred ideas come from in the Liberal-Progressive movement, seeing as they don't mind it so much.
Aside from your little snort about liberals, you make a great point. Sexuality is a big "moral trigger" for conservatives, but I would probably drink some bitters and get upset over something like, say, a person littering. Interesting!
And I always thought it was those dark brown glasses that gave Republicans that @!$%#ty outlook on life
I'm an independent and bs studies like these make me support Republicans taking away money for "scientific" research.
Also, beware, I read another study that said Fridays cause cancer in rats.
This little exercise has no merit whatsoever. There is no mention of the person running the study establishing a baseline first. Without that, how can you conclude that anything was different than normal? Why didn't the person writing this story list all six of the scenarios so we could all see what these so-called conservatives thought was so "morally wrong"? Maybe the other three were horrendous. Someone going for their Ph.D. in psychology more times than not is liberal, which would create a bias on the opinion of the "results of the study". Also, all participants were college students. I hate to admit it, but when I was in college, I was liberal. Then I faced real life.
I am a conservative, and of the three scenarios listed, the only one I think is morally wrong is the cousins sleeping together. The man eating his dead dog might be a case of survival or in the orient where it is commonplace.The lawyer, although I think it is in bad taste for him to look for clients at the hospitals, I do not consider it "morally" wrong.
Why is it that the conservatives commenting on this story actually have a critique of the study, and all the liberals want to do is attack the people pointing out the flaws in the portion of the article that we are able to read without buying a one day pass to sagepub for $35?
@mds77:
If you're young and not a liberal, you have no heart.
If you're old and still a liberal, you have no brain.
You stole that from former French President Giscard d'Estaing, but the original one names socialists:
If you are 20 and you are not a socialist, you have no heart;
If you are 40 and you are still a socialist, you have no brain
All of the 'over the top' right wingers V.s. left wingers who contribute nothing of substance on this site make me sick. Am I too judgemental?
Were you eating a lemon?
Science is so behind. Why do scientist insist that every process of ones body (and reality for that matter) are completly seperate processes? Hmm let's think here, my taste buds are indirectly linked to my brain I wonder if anything else might be? Yes everything effects/affects everything. Your thoughts? Yep who would have thought that could change your perception. So what you're trying to tell me is that modern science is addmitting they know nothing?
Who funded this "research". The breath mint consortium?
The military has been doing this for years. All Special Ops units, Force Recon, 82nd Airborne, Delta Force, U.S. Navy Seals...you eat things to survive, berries, bugs, plants and etc; that my turn your stomach. We do what others would not to complete our mission and come home alive.
A 100 people, come on.
Try it on 2000 or more and I might take it serious.
100 people, come on. Try it on 2000 or more and I might take it seri
Cilantro not only smells bad but it actually tastes much worse. It is pungent and can stay with me for hours. The study of taste buds and the different quantities folks tongues have may be the answer. I know that I cannot eat hot, spicy foods either!Maybe there is a large difference in the quantities of smell receptors too!