If you're into bold, no-nonsense black coffee, you might think it's just a healthy choice—or that you simply love the strong, bitter taste.
But, believe it or not, you might also have a darker personality lurking beneath the surface—one that leans toward traits like sadism, narcissism, or antisocial behavior.
That’s what researchers from the University of Innsbruck in Austria suggest, based on a study involving 953 people in the U.S. who were asked about their coffee preferences.
The study found a noticeable connection between enjoying black coffee and showing signs of psychopathic or sadistic traits.
In the study, participants shared their taste preferences for foods and drinks that were sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. After that, they completed four personality assessments designed to measure antisocial traits—things like narcissism, psychopathy, aggression, and sadism.
The findings were pretty eye-opening. They showed a strong link between the "increased enjoyment of bitter foods" which also includes drinks like gin and tonics and treats like dark chocolate and "heightened sadistic proclivities."
"In two studies, we investigated how bitter taste preferences might be associated with anti-social personality traits." the abstract of the study explained. "Two US American community samples self-reported their taste preferences using two complementary preference measures and answered a number of personality questionnaires assessing Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, everyday sadism, trait aggression, and the Big Five factors of personality."
"The results of both studies confirmed the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits, with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy." they noted in their conclusions.
The study discovered a correlation between a love of black coffee and sadist or psychopathic tendencies.
According to Psychology Today, the concept of everyday sadism refers to someone who "takes pleasure from ordinary experiences in which cruelty is vicarious.". That might include enjoying violent movies, getting a kick out of gore, or even finding ideas like torture intriguing or entertaining.
On the other hand, psychopathy is a condition that’s "characterized in part by shallow emotional responses, lack of empathy, impulsivity, and an increased likelihood for antisocial behavior." as noted by the National Library of Medicine.
The researchers wrapped things up by saying that "bitter taste preferences are associated with more pronounced malevolent personality traits, especially robustly with everyday sadism." They also pointed out that, because the study involved a "large community sample", it reflected insights from a "wide section of the population".
That said, the researchers made it clear that liking a certain food and actually eating it regularly aren’t the same thing. People might skip foods they love if they’re too expensive, unhealthy, or if social situations call for different choices.
They also pointed out that people don’t always like foods such as beer, wine, chili, or coffee at first. But over time and thanks to social cues or habits—those flavors grow on us. Taste sensitivity and past experiences, including accidental encounters with strong flavors, can shape what we end up liking too.
So, if your go-to order is a cup of black coffee... you might just want to take a second and reflect on that a little.