What Food Matches Your Personality? Is there actually a link?
Here comes another anecdotal story.
I was on Buzzfeed the other day, looking for some interesting things to blog about, when I stumbled upon one particular quiz: WHAT FOOD MATCHES YOUR PERSONALITY? Needless to say, I was curious, and took the quiz. Apparently, I’m pizza and I’m “effortlessly cool” (they said it, not me!).
Regardless, this wasn’t the first time I had encountered this type of quiz. People often take what appear to be silly tests that indicate what food best represents who they are. But are they in fact just silly, or is there some scientific basis that can validate this link? I took it upon myself to find this out.
I came across the research of Dr. Alan Hirsch, a US neurologist who specializes in the treatment of people who lose their sense of smell and taste. What was of particular interest to me was the research Hirsch has done regarding a potential link between food choices and behaviour.
Hirsch began by quizzing a sample of 19,400 people, and made them all undergo two well-known personality tests, so that the results could enable him to categorize the participants according to widely accepted personality categories. Additionally, he tested the participants’ preference for snack foods, as well as the pleasure they assigned to each food. Hirsch then checked his own results against the already-established personality categories in hopes of finding a correlation between choice of snack food and personality type.
The results showed fascinating links between perfectionism and the urges to munch tortilla chips. Furthermore, they even indicated a connection between introversion and the consumption of cream crackers. Who knew!
Dr Hirsch later performed a similar experiment using the same testing technique and examined associations between different personality types and the flavours of ice cream people prefer.
“We may be the adventurous type and try new flavours, or we may resist change and go back to those we considered tried and true,” says Hirsch.
All in all, I believe my original question was answered. There is, in fact, truth to the correlation implied by the various quizzes associating personality to types of food.
After this little detective work, I must admit that I may have gotten the itch to look into more Buzzfeed quizzes, and investigate how accurate their foundations are in psychological phenomena. I’ll keep you guys posted!
EXTRA: If you’re curious, you can take Dr. Hirsch’s test here: http://www.smellandtaste.org/
260532107
