Glass Shapes Can Make Us Drink Too Much

Roland Piquepaille writes "Some people think that a glass is half empty while others see it as half full. But one thing is sure: some glasses are fuller than others. According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), researchers from Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown that short glasses are more likely to lead to over-indulgence. In fact, people pour 20-30 percent more alcohol into short, wide glasses than into tall, narrow ones of the same volume. The researchers obtained similar results with students and professional bartenders. So, as New Year's Eve is coming, remember to use only tall glasses for your party!!!"

Comments

Warning

[ackthpt]

WARNING: The Bartender General has determined that beverage container appearances may be deceiving. It is recommended you use this to your maximum advantage with regard to the opposite sex.

Seriously, some putz at the local pub insisted the Pint glasses there were only 14 fluid ounces. Having a few of same at home I whipped out my trusty graduated cylinder and measured the volume with great precision. The result was close to 16.5 fluid ounces. I keep waiting for an opportunity to make a $100 bet, but keep leaving the scienterrific equipment home.

Wall thickness of glass containers can certainly be deceptive. For pint glasses it's usually about 3mm for the sides and as much as 1cm for the base. Notice how tiny a 16.9 oz. (500mL) water plastic bottle looks compared to a 12 oz. (355mL) bottle. Shape may account for some, but wall thickness is actually a considerable amount of volume within outer perimeter.

In any event I'll be keeping it safe and sane this New Year's Eve by only drinking very expensive champagne. As soon as the money runs out I'll be on water, which should be about 1 hour and 3 hours before midnight.

Does it work with non-alcoholic beverages as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Most Americans are dehydrated most of the time. Few of us drink the 64 ounces of liquid we're supposed to. Can we use this effect to our advantage as well as our disadvantage?

Another explanation

[Ruff_ilb]

Although I don't think this is quite what the article is talking about, shorter glasses (think shot glasses) tend to be used for high alc. content drinks. OTOH, taller glasses tend to be used for beer, etc. Perhaps there's a relationship, too, between drinking too much and the type of booze, which could act as a lurking variable in the overall scheme of glasstype/drinking quantity correllation.

And some glass shapes

[3waygeek]

keep us from drinking anything at all.

Interesting but not too surprising

[Hellasboy]

I don't remember where I heard this from; textbook, professor, teacher.

But a neat thing you can do is have two equal volumes of water in two different types of glasses and present it to a pre-preschool, preschool, or kindergarten aged child (memory is a little hazy on the age). Fill one short wide glass and one tall narrow glass with equal volumes of water in front of the child and the child will tell you that the taller, narrower glass has more water than the short, fat glass. Yes, they will tell you that it is fuller even though they see the same amount of water go into each glass.

I can't exactly recall which part of the brain develops during this age (24-40 months) at the moment, but it's a neat thing to see (if you're a science geek).

As how this might relate to the topic... maybe this doesn't fully develop (or develop as much) in some people because of diet, genetics, or a combination of both?

This reminds me

[MrP-(at work)]

This reminds me of an ice cream shop I went to once years ago when I was a child. I ordered a small ice cream sundae and my dad ordered a large. It was about a 2-3 dollar difference. When the dishes were empty, for some reason I filled my sundae dish with water to the top, then I poured it from my dish into my fathers large dish and it went right to the top. Both small and large held the same amount. It's just the large had really thick glass and the small had thinner glass, what a ripoff.

Anyway, "So, as New Year's Eve is coming, remember to use only tall glasses for your party!!!"... This year I'll be using short glasses thank you!

Try this one....

[imsabbel]

http://www.kleinbottle.com/

There it could be a bit problematic to say weather its half full or empty, topologically :)