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At last, some good news for dessert lovers; a new study has shown that people who reach for the sweet instead of the savoury are more likely to have agreeable or 'prosocial' personalities.
The experiment, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that a liking of sweets was linked with higher levels of agreeableness and a tendency to be friendly, cooperative and compassionate.
Have you ever wondered why people who have agreeable personalities are described as 'sweet'? Well, these 'taste-related metaphors' prompted psychological researches to conduct the study to evaluate the relationship between taste preferences and personality traits.
As well as finding that subjects who liked sweet food were more likely to display prosocial behaviours, it also showed that people believed strangers who liked sweet foods we also higher in agreeableness and that subjects who were given some sweet food (versus savoury or no food) were more likely to help others.
While researchers are yet to test the other side of the taste spectrum, whether people with 'hostile' dispositions prefer bitter or savoury food, the paper states the findings 'provide a complimentary but unique perspective to traditional trait views of personality.'/
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