People Who Prefer Black Coffee Are More Likely To Have Psychopathic Or Sadistic Traits, Study Finds (rd.com)

A new study conducted at the University of Innsbruck in Austria finds that people who drink their coffee black often has psychopathic or sadistic traits. The study surveyed more than 1,000 adults about their taste preferences with foods and drinks that are bitter. They also took four different personality tests that assessed traits like narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, and aggression. From a report: Researchers found a trend that suggested a correlation between preferences for black coffee, and other bitter tastes, and sadistic or psychopathic personality traits. They also found that people who enjoyed milky or sugary coffee, and other sweet flavors, generally tended to have more "agreeable" personality traits like sympathy, cooperation, and kindness. The closest correlation found in the study was between bitter foods, like radishes and tonic water, and "everyday sadism," or the enjoyment of inflicting moderate levels of pain on others. The researchers went further, suggesting that this association between bitter foods and psychopathic tendencies could "become chronic" and get worse with time.

Comments

Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

I better start adding sugar and cream so the Stasi doesn't become suspicious of me.

Re: Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't they just give you a job? Surely a sadist is still suited to that line of work.

This is stupid junk science.

[Hey_Jude_Jesus]

This kind of BS discredits the entire scientific community.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[JaredOfEuropa]

Translation: we found a tenuous statistical correlation that will make for an awesome headline.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing less "hard" about correlating data in civics as physics, in fact the same rules apply. The only question is how much more complex the data is involving human behavior as opposed to particle/wave behavior.

If you discount any information out of hand because you think the result is "bad science" but you don't actually have a method of critique, you are not a scientist or operating in that field at all, just a tourist.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[gweihir]

I agree. This sounds like an absolute load of nonsense.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[ceoyoyo]

Hey, come on, an R^2 of 0.02 is really strong correlation!

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[AmiMoJo]

I don't know... They also found that people who have it with lots of milk are agreeable and personable, and I take like 80% milk.

True fact.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[burtosis]

There's nothing less "hard" about correlating data in civics as physics, in fact the same rules apply. The only question is how much more complex the data is involving human behavior as opposed to particle/wave behavior.

If you discount any information out of hand because you think the result is "bad science" but you don't actually have a method of critique, you are not a scientist or operating in that field at all, just a tourist.

Field purity as opined by one of the finest, most respected, and authoritative sources on the internet. /s

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[alvinrod]

I take like 80% milk.

No, you take your milk with 20% coffee.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[arth1]

I take like 80% milk.

No, you take your milk with 20% coffee.

Maths isn't your strongest skill, I hope?
If 80% of the drink is milk and 20% is coffee, then you need to take your milk with 25% coffee, not 20%.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[ceoyoyo]

They mention previous studies where bitter taste preference was associated with more openness. So exhibitionism. Check.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[kenai_alpenglow]

You're right. I also love my coffee black, and I always give the the shirt off my back to the BEMs that survive the black helicopters I shoot down.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[hey!]

Well, once you filter it through a typical reporter's capacity for understanding, Relativity is BS.

What the studies in question actually do is correlate a generalized preference for bitter tastes to antisocial personality traits. This would have almost no correlation to liking specific bitter foods, particularly black coffee, which is also a cocktail of pharmacologically acrtive compounds -- including of course caffeine, which is a potent stimulator of the brain's dopamine-mediated reward mechanisms. Beer, likewise, is usually bitter, but alcohol is also a powerful dopamine stimulatior.

But even repeated exposures to non-psychoactive bitter foods can habituate people, and eventually make those foods desirable. We crave what we are accustomed to eating, even if it is radicchio. Many vegetables have bitter components, which is why you have to learn to like them.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[hcs_$reboot]

Maths isn't your strongest skill, I hope?

Text editing isn't your strongest skill, I hope? If 20% of your comment is the parent quote, then you need to make your own comment outside the <quote> tags.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Kjella]

Maths isn't your strongest skill, I hope? If 80% of the drink is milk and 20% is coffee, then you need to take your milk with 25% coffee, not 20%.

English is not yours? Coffee + milk = coffee. Ice cream + toppings = ice cream. Additives don't count. If I say I take my coffee with 20% milk I think all native speakers would take that to mean 20% of the entire cup of coffee, not that I've added 20% to black coffee. Of course the pun here is that there's so much milk it's milk with coffee instead of coffee with milk. But it's still just 20%.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[quantaman]

This kind of BS discredits the entire scientific community.

I think the causal implication is a bit junky but a correlation isn't implausible.

Black coffee and bitter foods are both things that create a bit of culinary conflict, one of the reasons to consume them is to create a strong sensation even if it's a bit unpleasant.

Psychopaths and sadists are also people who tend to seek out stronger sensations, psychopaths because they have muted emotions and sadists because they enjoy the discomfort.

If this correlation is legit I'd expect sociopaths and sadists to enjoy spicy food as well.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep tilting those windmi... err giants my friend.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[BronsCon]

You seem to be confusing sadism and masochism.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[rtb61]

Seems logical. Coffee is not just coffee, it is caffeine and also bitter as well altering digestive chemistry. So the nature of the individual and their preference for that drink, drunk in that matter and the amount they choose to drink. Psychopaths are not psychopaths because they choose to be that way, they are born that way and likely are unable to properly produce the brain chemical state of 'happiness', which has a profound affect on their psychology. This will reflect in their food choices, their tastes and those taste are not just tastes, those tastes are often molecular precursors for all sorts of brain chemicals, you will teach yourself to choose the ones that feed the nature of your brain, of your personality.

I switch from coffee to alkalised cocoa (that wash the chocolate powered with and alkalised solution which reacts with the bitter acidic elements obviating the need for sugar). Over time it all alter health and recovery state and produced a more at peace digestive tract and altered behaviour as a result, drinking a bean broth, with a little raw sugar and milk, versus drinking chemicals extracts of a burnt bean. Yeah, fuckers, you are what you eat, suck it up or should I say imbibe, so as not to exclude, drunk or smoked or swallowed or snorted or injected and how ever you choose your poisons.

I would expect psychos also prefer cocaine (excitement) and opioids (the missing happy) over a combination of THC and CBD. I would also expect psychos would be very displeased to be exposed by their behavioural patterns preferring to stab everyone else in the back. I can understand exactly why they would prefer black coffee a stimulant, it is their nature.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[mea2214]

55% of all statistics are made up.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[religionofpeas]

particularly black coffee, which is also a cocktail of pharmacologically acrtive compounds

Adding a bit a milk or sweetener doesn't change any of that. It might dilute the effect a bit, but you could just take two cups.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[TechyImmigrant]

This kind of BS discredits the entire scientific community.

Go read the paper http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp...

It makes no stupid claims. The report only weak association (e.g. r = 0.15 for one of them).

Meanwhile the journalist Shannon Donohue wrote "Do you prefer your morning joe sans cream and sugar? A new study says you're probably a psychopath with sadistic tendencies.". Shannon Donohue is another bad journalist who's first impulse on reading a paper is to lie about it in an article.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[TechyImmigrant]

I take like 80% milk.

No, you take your milk with 20% coffee.

I take my coffee with heavy cream. Milk is for victims of low fat dogma.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. If 1% milk has 1% milkfat, and 2% milk has 2% milkfat, and cream is 30% milk, I would assume if somebody says:

> I take my coffee with 20% milk

That they mean they take it with milk that is 20% milkfat, also known as half-and-half.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[goose-incarnated]

I take like 80% milk.

True fact.

I'm guessing that you're overweight and blame your obesity on some medical problem.

(You know, sometimes I hate being right)

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[thegarbz]

Sounds like you're a white coffee kinda guy. I just had a triple espresso without sugar and the beans were stale. Show me the researchers! I need to punch some fools.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[q_e_t]

The theories make predictions, which by-and-large can ultimately be tested (at the expense of machines that smash things into other things with higher energies, perhaps). Even now, new data comes along, e.g. from CERN, and demolishes or supports various aspects. Ultimately, pen-and-paper is cheaper than particle accelerators, so theory development can run ahead of the available experimental information.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[q_e_t]

To a 95% confidence level, this is true, but there's still a chance that 0% or 100% are made up.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[q_e_t]

Back in 'the day', by which I mean the days of my parents and grandparents, coffee with water and a little milk was called coffee, coffee with just milk was called 'church coffee'. Now, I suppose, it would be a latte, but without the steam and froth, as that would probably be sinful.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[AmiMoJo]

80% milk, 17% water, 3% coffee.

As opposed to people who drink 97% water and 3% coffee, otherwise known as "black coffee".

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Tom]

This.

correlation != causation

The causation could well be the other way around: Psychopaths prefer black coffee.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Highdude702]

I would expect psychos also prefer cocaine (excitement) and opioids (the missing happy) over a combination of THC and CBD.

Now riddle me this. I have been called a psycho a time or two in my 32 years on this earth. I like all of the above mentioned(CBD gives you no feeling) and have battled and won addiction with the first two. How would liking the euphoric feeling of the drug make me a psychopath? I consider myself a rather happy person until somebody does something stupid. I cant help the fact that stupidity pisses me off.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Oligonicella]

There's nothing less "hard" about correlating data in civics as physics, in fact the same rules apply. The only question is how much more complex the data is involving human behavior as opposed to particle/wave behavior.

It ain't the correlation, it's the data. And it ain't the complexity of the data, it's the integrity and non-reproducibility.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Oligonicella]

And what theories that String Theory makes have been verified?

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Oligonicella]

This will reflect in their food choices, their tastes and those taste are not just tastes, those tastes are often molecular precursors for all sorts of brain chemicals, you will teach yourself to choose the ones that feed the nature of your brain, of your personality.

Well there's a butt-load of supposition on your part. Kinda like soc-sci in general.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Oligonicella]

theories->predictions

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[q_e_t]

It's not important as to whether they are correct, rather than they make predictions which can be tested. The last I read is that recent evidence didn't seem to be supporting String Theory(ies) but rather the Standard Model, which means science is working as intended.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Attacking journalists? Nice. You just put yourself in the basket of deplorables with Trump and Musk. Listen to this exchange:

Kara: "You pick fights with the press over Twitter, and then you have all your fans, of which there are many. Are you aware of what they do once you start them off?"

Elon: "Well, I have to say, my regard for the press has dropped quite dramatically."

Kara: "Explain that, please."

Elon: "The amount of untruthful stuff that is written is unbelievable. Take that Wall Street Journal front-page article about, like, âoeThe FBI is closing in.â That is utterly false. Thatâ(TM)s absurd. To print such a falsehood on the front page of a major newspaper is outrageous. Like, why are they even journalists? Theyâ(TM)re terrible. Terrible people."

Kara: "I get that, but do you understand the mood in this country around the press and the dangers of attacking, especially when the president is doing that? In quite an aggressive, âoeenemy of the stateâ and everything else. Itâ(TM)s disturbing when someone like you as a leader does that, too, or goes along with it."

Elon: "The answer is for the press to be honest and truthful, and research their articles and correct things properly when they are false. Which they donâ(TM)t do."

Kara: "Okay. But Iâ(TM)m asking if you understand where it goes to."

Elon: "Yes, of course I do."

Kara: "What do you think of that? Are you worried about unleashing a dangerous cycle that a lot of the press are worried about? Justifiably."

Elon: "I suggest the press take it to heart and do better."

Kara: "What about what Donald Trump does, about âoeenemy of the peopleâ? Do you look at it that way?"

Elon: "No."

Kara: "Just that you donâ(TM)t like falsehoods."

Elon: "Yeah. There are good journalists and there are bad ones, and unfortunately the feedback loop for good versus bad is inverted, so the more salacious that an article is, the more salacious the headline is, the more clicks itâ(TM)s gonna get. Then somebody is not a journalist, they are an ad salesman."

Kara: "What about things that are just critical of you that you donâ(TM)t like? Do you think youâ(TM)re particularly sensitive?"

Elon: "No. Of course not. Count how many negative articles there are and how many I respond to. One percent, maybe. But the common rebuttal of journalists is, âoeOh. My articleâ(TM)s fine. Heâ(TM)s just thin-skinned.â No, your article is false and you donâ(TM)t want to admit it."

Re: This is stupid junk science.

[jd]

String theory and higher dimensions form predictions that can be tested experimentally. They may be wrong, but they are science.

Re: This is stupid junk science.

[jd]

You don't need to observe strings, any prediction will do. Supersymmetry, for example, or supergravity. Falsify either and strings must be false. If either is true, strings must be true.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Hognoxious]

Physics are getting infected, too.

With what, the incorrect plural virus?

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Hognoxious]

Coffee + milk = coffee. Ice cream + toppings = ice cream.

So is gin and tonic gin? Or is it tonic? Is it which named first that counts, or the one present in the greatest quantity?

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Hognoxious]

You seem to be confused about who is suffering the discomfort.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[nwaack]

Translation: we found a tenuous statistical correlation that will make for an awesome headline.

The 12 year old "writers" at HuffPo will love it!!!

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[cellocgw]

The causation could well be the other way around: Psychopaths prefer black coffee.

I think you meant to type "Black coffee prefers psychopaths"

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[TechyImmigrant]

My opinion of journalists is entirely based on my experiences with them. I used to think they were good people.

Re:This is stupid junk science.

[Highdude702]

No, not somebody. Stupid.. That's what I was blaming it on. I didn't make these people stupid. They did. You know this, stop being disingenuous. Its not fair to the people I'm talking about. I point it out to try to help them, and it has worked for a few that wanted to be better. I can not help the lack of motivation of some.

As a black coffee drinker

[denisbergeron]

I develop psychopathic and Sadistic Traits when I'm in line to order a coffee and the person(s) before me, ask for a double cream, piñata, spicey, cassonade, maple, cappuccino, with a gest of cittrus some cannelle and stuff like that

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[TeknoHog]

Those who can't drink their coffee neat shouldn't be counted as coffee drinkers. If you like milky drinks with a splash of coffee, fine, but please don't call the whole thing coffee. It's like saying "I'm a C programmer, but I don't really know much C, I only use it via the Python interpreter".

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[gweihir]

Well, I write Python modules in C. No Idea what that signifies...

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Dutch Gun]

For many years, I didn't enjoy black coffee. But I was honest enough to call what I drank "liquid coffee candy". As I got older, I found that I enjoyed black coffee more. It allows you to enjoy more subtle flavors which cream, sugar, and flavorings cover up.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[dgatwood]

It's like saying "I'm a C programmer, but I don't really know much C, I only use it via the Python interpreter".

More like saying, "I'm a C programmer because I write iOS apps (in Objective-C)."

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[movdqa]

I'm sadistic - I like assembler.

Re: As a black coffee drinker

[Cmdln Daco]

It means you're an enabler.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychopath. Not sadist, though - that would be Rust modules written in FORTRAN.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[The Grim Reefer]

So if someone like's black coffee, that tells you nothing.

But if they try to gouge your eyes out with a spoon while enjoying their black coffee, they just might be a psychopath.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[AmiMoJo]

By that logic you drink coffee flavored water.

Milk or water, it's still coffee.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[pjt33]

You may be confusing sadism with masochism.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[arth1]

Adulterating it with sugar and fats turns a zero calorie drink into something you should avoid.

Coffee isn't zero calorie. Unsweetened coffee without milk or other additives have from 1-12 calories per cup, depending on the coffee and size of the cup. That's if it's room temperature. If it's hot, add the heat calories it will give off cooling to your body temperature after drinking.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[alvinrod]

Also, most people's experience with black coffee is Folgers or similar low quality grounds that are much closer to loose dirt or discarded pencil shavings than it is to coffee. Get some good beans that you grind yourself and prepare appropriately and black coffee can have a wonderful flavor profile that needs no additives to enjoy.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[msauve]

Have you seen his code?

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Trogre]

Wait, you water down your coffee? Fine, but don't call it coffee.

Chew the beans like a man.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[meglon]

A sadist and a masochist passed each other on the sidewalk. The masochist said "hurt me." The sadist said "no."

I'm not entirely sure of the relevance of that in this discussion, but what the hell.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[ceoyoyo]

I prefer to grind them up and snort them. Hits harder.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[blindseer]

If it were almost any other drug you'd be in jail, but if it's caffeine, you can brag about your addiction and no one will bat an eye.

I heard someone point out that if we had discovered alcohol today then it would be classified as a schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. This would be fairly accurate as it is a highly addictive intoxicating substance, with no accepted medicinal value, and having high probability of mental or physical harm. Caffeine in high doses likely meets this standard as well. As would tobacco.

One problem with this is the standard for addiction seems rather subjective. Addiction is just a mental or physical craving for a substance. Are people "addicted" to air? Or food? Well, there are some cases of a food addiction but this is often a sign of an underlying mental or physical condition. I recall a cabbage craving was considered a sign of some physical problem, and people self medicating by eating foam from couch cushions. Of course there are better treatments for diseases than eating gobs of cabbage, and certainly eating foam padding is not all that healthy.

As someone that deals with chronic pain I hear the word "addiction" far too often. There's even a term for seeking medication outside of merely abusing the substance, "pseudo-addiction". Addiction is, again, so subjective that it's lost all meaning to me. There's claims of people being addicted to video games, watching porn, washing their hands, and so many other behaviors. What makes taking a drug, drinking coffee, or smoking a cigarette an addiction over merely a bad habit? I've heard it somewhere that tobacco use is not an addiction if it's not used more than once per month. So, a person is "addicted" if they like to have a cigarette with his smoking friends when they meet on the weekend for poker and pizza? Are they also addicted to poker and pizza then?

I'm thinking we need a better word than addiction for such cravings, or we need to need to better define addiction to something other than merely something that can be mistaken for routine, medical needs, or bad habits. I don't want to be accused of being an addict just because I have not had my pain properly managed by physicians. It seems we've created a health care system so handcuffed by the government's fear of addiction that they can't do their job.

I remember hearing on how there's an "epidemic" among veterans for their opiate use, being prescribed opiates far above the general population. Well, no shit Sherlock! The average population isn't shot at, blown up, dropped from helicopters, marched for miles with 100 pounds on their backs, or put in considerable peril by an LT with a map. I won't doubt that there is an opiate abuse problem, but people need to be treated as individuals and not as some average member of the general population. The average member of the population has one testicle, one ovary, and 1.99 legs, which has little to do with how an individual is treated.

Re: As a black coffee drinker

[phantomfive]

The model of the mind used by the psychology community is so naÃve that it isn't useful for very much. And you can see that I'm the treatment cure rates.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[rnturn]

``much closer to loose dirt or discarded pencil shavings''

That's why you never let a non-coffee drinker to buy the coffee for the department coffee maker. We made that mistake many years ago and the phrase "pencil shavings" was exactly how we described what we had to suffer through until enough of us chipped in for something that was drinkable.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[rnturn]

Argh... s/let/send/

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[blibbo]

Those who can't drink their coffee neat shouldn't be counted as coffee drinkers.

First time I've heard "neat" applied to coffee. Pouring it at room temperature seems pretty strange to me, but who am I to play gatekeeper?

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Opportunist]

That's what gets on my tits every time and what keeps me from going to the likes of Starbucks: "What flavor do you want for your coffee?"

COFFEE! That's why I order one!

I am honestly expecting them to have coffee syrup for flavoring.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Opportunist]

A sadist is an assembler programmer that doesn't comment his code.

A masochist is someone who tries to debug his 2 year old uncommented assembler code instead of writing it new.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Opportunist]

Real men shove beans up their nostrils then ask their friend for a good punch to the sniffer.

Re: As a black coffee drinker

[phantomfive]

all FDA approved brain medicines and return to the good old days of phrenology and homeopathy?

Brain medicine? Now you are talking about psychiatry. That's a totally different topic. Psychologists can't prescribe medicine.

Psychiatry is a little better, but it's basically at the same level as root doctors or herbal practitioners. "Head not working right? Try these amphetamines, they seemed to work for the last guy with similar symptoms."

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[thegarbz]

So, a person is "addicted" if they like to have a cigarette with his smoking friends when they meet on the weekend for poker and pizza?

You're confusing yourself with definitions. Addiction doesn't have anything to do with "like". Quite the opposite. It has to do with "need" even if you don't "like". If you have a cigarette once a month then you're not addicted to them. In general withdrawal symptoms to addictive substances don't take more than a couple of days to screw you up.

What addiction looks like:
You want to give up smoking, but you can't.
You give up coffee and start chewing paracetamol tablets to get the headaches under control for the next week (my own experience).
You give up sugar and bite the head off everyone who talks to you for a week in ways that not even a hormonally raged psycho on her period could possibly do (my own experience with someone else).
You say "I can stop ${thing} anytime I want!" And yet when you actually need to stop you continue doing ${thing} because the very brain that wants to stop is also dependent on the status quo.

I think you're self justifying the need to define addiction differently. The reality is that most people can understand the difference between an occasional craving and an addiction quite well.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Tom]

Addiction is just a mental or physical craving for a substance.

No, it is not.

Are people "addicted" to air? Or food?

You are committing a catagory mistake there.

Air and food are necessary for survival. Coffee is not, alcohol is not, heroin is not, tobacco is not, etc. etc.

An addiction is exactly the condition that tricks your brain into believing that OMG I WILL DIE IF I DON'T GET MY CIGARETTE RIGHT NOW.

Addiction is turning a craving into a behaviour-changing existential need.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Tom]

What makes taking a drug, drinking coffee, or smoking a cigarette an addiction over merely a bad habit? I've heard it somewhere that tobacco use is not an addiction if it's not used more than once per month. So, a person is "addicted" if they like to have a cigarette with his smoking friends when they meet on the weekend for poker and pizza? Are they also addicted to poker and pizza then?

An addiction is mind-altering.

There are certain sweets or drinks that I enjoy greatly. If you put them in front of me together with other snacks, I know which I would pick. But it would never cross my mind to commit a crime to get them, or go into prostitution. If I lose access to them - as happened when I changed country recently with a few of my favorite foods - I will be sad, but I won't go around killing people. And if you come for a surprise visit and bring them, I will be "oh, cool, thank you!" not frothing at the mouth jumping over the table grabbing it from you.

Tobacco, like alcohol and other drugs is mildly addictive if consumed in small quantities. The full addictive effect only kicks in with regular users, there is a habituation effect. So your twice-a-year smoker might very well not be addicted. But the evidence is clear especially in smokers about how hard it is to quit. The evidence is clear in alcoholics how one drink can ruin years of abstinence and plunge them right back into being alcoholics. These clear and numerous facts you cannot just deny. And you will not find comparable examples for poker and pizza.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[reboot246]

I use cream and sugar in bad coffee to cover up the taste, but I do enjoy a bit of cream and sugar in good coffee from time to time. They make it a totally different drink.

Good coffee which is fresh roasted, properly ground, and brewed right is naturally somewhat sweet. You can taste more complex flavors in coffee than you can in wine. No, I'm not a coffee snob. I roast my own coffee at home and I know the difference between good coffee and Charbucks coffee.

None I've ever seen is actually "black". I don't know why people have always called it that. The beans may be black if you go to a very dark roast, but the brewed coffee won't be black. If you think it's black, pour a few drops on a white plate and see for yourself what color your coffee is.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[TeknoHog]

First time I've heard "neat" applied to coffee. Pouring it at room temperature seems pretty strange to me, but who am I to play gatekeeper?

I couldn't find a better word (not a native English speaker) to describe coffee without any mixers. "Black coffee" is a tautology because coffee is black by itself, like "black coal" or "black African-American". If you make coffee not black, then it's no longer coffee, hence it shouldn't be counted as drinking coffee.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[pezezin]

We are talking about real coffee here, not the bullshit Americans call coffee.

Re: As a black coffee drinker

[Highdude702]

I use the cold more to suppress the bubbles. And I don't like the flavor of dark beers. Plus they make me feel bloated whereas normal american beers don't. To each their own.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[Anonymous Coward]

A clinical psychologist once said "if you can sit for half an hour with someone and NOT want to stab him in the face with a fork, he's not a paranoid schizophrenic."

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[ChoGGi]

I roast my own coffee
You can taste more complex flavors in coffee than you can in wine.
pour a few drops on a white plate and see for yourself what color your coffee is

No, I'm not a coffee snob.

Erm, hate to break it to you, but...

Also pretty sure it's called black for the lack of milk, not the actual colour.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[dj245]

First time I've heard "neat" applied to coffee. Pouring it at room temperature seems pretty strange to me, but who am I to play gatekeeper?

I couldn't find a better word (not a native English speaker) to describe coffee without any mixers. "Black coffee" is a tautology because coffee is black by itself, like "black coal" or "black African-American". If you make coffee not black, then it's no longer coffee, hence it shouldn't be counted as drinking coffee.

I hope you are not serious. Does putting butter on a baked potato make it something other than a baked potato? Does adding mustard and bread to a sausage make it something other than a sausage? Adding a garnish or condiment does not change the item of food/drink, unless the amount is so excessive as to become a joke.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[HeckRuler]

Oh look at this fancy dandy drinking the name-brandy dirt. Us working plebs have to drink the free no-name garbage-brand dirt what our employers buy in bulk.

At least it's not that burnt starbucks crap.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[blindseer]

You're confusing yourself with definitions. Addiction doesn't have anything to do with "like". Quite the opposite. It has to do with "need" even if you don't "like". If you have a cigarette once a month then you're not addicted to them. In general withdrawal symptoms to addictive substances don't take more than a couple of days to screw you up.

What addiction looks like:
You want to give up smoking, but you can't.
You give up coffee and start chewing paracetamol tablets to get the headaches under control for the next week (my own experience).
You give up sugar and bite the head off everyone who talks to you for a week in ways that not even a hormonally raged psycho on her period could possibly do (my own experience with someone else).
You say "I can stop ${thing} anytime I want!" And yet when you actually need to stop you continue doing ${thing} because the very brain that wants to stop is also dependent on the status quo.

I think you're self justifying the need to define addiction differently. The reality is that most people can understand the difference between an occasional craving and an addiction quite well.

For someone self medicating for a medical condition those behaviors you describe can look a lot like an addiction. Physicians often can't even understand the difference, which is why we have the term "pseudo-addiction".

I've heard of cancer patients craving marijuana, either to treat the pain and other symptoms from the cancer itself or to moderate the side effects of their treatments. Such people can get irritable, bite the head off people for minor matters, crave marijuana to the point of doing something they might not normally do. I will concede that an addict might feel compelled to commit crimes to feed such a need but someone craving relief from their medical conditions might not. This is still an arbitrary and subjective distinction. I can recall having a very bad flu and craving Tylenol. While I was not likely to hold a druggist at gunpoint to get some but if someone was taunting me and holding it out of my reach I might feel a need to punch the person in the ribs to get it. Is resorting to violence in this case an "addiction"? No, it's someone in pain, fevered, and angered for being arbitrarily deprived of something that can provide relief.

The very fact that the concept of "pseudo-addiction" has made it to medical literature is an indication that addiction is poorly defined and difficult to create a distinction from "true" addiction. If a physician, someone that has specialized training in discovering addiction, cannot tell the difference then that means we have a problem. We need better testing for what is addiction as opposed to people craving proper treatment for their mental or physical pain.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[blindseer]

Addiction is turning a craving into a behaviour-changing existential need.

So is pseudo-addiction. The behaviors for both are largely indistinguishable, to the point even medical professionals cannot see a difference. The difference is that the person with addictive behaviors but to treat a real medical condition is not considered a true addict. The problem I see is that the government is so concerned of true addiction that it is creating the problem of pseudo-addiction. The laws created this problem, we will need laws changed to resolve the problem.

It would also help if mental health treatments improved but getting people committed for their health was made exceedingly difficult. This has gone on for so long that I have no recollection of how it was before versus now. I just see too many people ending up in prison and not getting treated instead of getting treatment and being productive members of society.

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[cyberchondriac]

"Would you like cream or sugar?"

"No thanks, I prefer a little vitreous humour in my coffee" grabs spoon

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[gweihir]

I do very strictly follow my own permissive indention rules!

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[gweihir]

Sounds complicated. I rather do it straight and not through yet another unnecessary tool. Of course, I do know how to do OO in C...

Re:As a black coffee drinker

[thegarbz]

For someone self medicating for a medical condition those behaviors you describe can look a lot like an addiction.

They are not mutually exclusive. Someone can be legitimately medicating for a purpose while simultaneously addicted to the medication. The problem arises if the medication supply stops or better still the original medical condition subsides.

I've heard of cancer patients craving marijuana

Please repeat after me, a "craving" is not an addiction especially not when treating an unrelated symptom. Don't confuse the two. Now if the lack of marijuana is what causes the pain that creates the craving, THAT is an addiction.

The very fact that the concept of "pseudo-addiction" has made it to medical literature is an indication that addiction is poorly defined

Addiction isn't poorly defined. It's poorly understood, and precisely those things which look like addictions which are not are what medical literature has attempted to define in an attempt to clarify the problem.

We need better testing for what is addiction as opposed to people craving proper treatment for their mental or physical pain.

No we don't, we just need better understanding of the source of the pain in question. But while we're at it I want a unicorn too since unrealistic and highly subjective wishes are the top of the list today.

Good to know for job interviews.

[BitterOak]

If you're interviewing for a job and the interviewer offers you coffee, be sure to take cream and sugar even if you normally don't. Otherwise you might be signalling you're a psychopath or sadist. Of course, the reverse advice applies if you are applying for a police or correctional officer position.

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you apply for upper management just eat the coffee grounds raw.

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[DigiShaman]

Or if the manager interviewing drinks black coffee, run away for you don't want a psychopath for a manager.

Actually, this is good dating advise too. Women are inherently on the crazy scale as it is. You shouldn't have to die for that shit!

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[93 Escort Wagon]

When coffee is bad, I do take both cream and sugar. In a job interview I’m likely going to assume any proferred coffee is going to be bad, so...

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[Memnos]

Unless it's on Wall Street. Then, ask for straight coffee alkaloids and snort them.

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[Black LED]

Also wear glasses and a wedding band. People associate glasses with knowledge ("his eyes went bad because he read a lot") and the wedding band may help you to negotiate a higher salary (don't point it out, just use hand gestures while speaking so that they will see it).

Again, reverse that if you are applying for law enforcement.

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[epine]

When coffee is bad, I do take both cream and sugar. In a job interview Iâ(TM)m likely going to assume any proferred coffee is going to be bad, so...

I actually take a test sip black, and then decide on the cream level. Rarely ever cream in a quality single-origin medium roast.

In the rare cases where I'm in the kind of chain that has two coffees available, usually a medium roast (which might be medium dark) and a dark roast (which is usually a very dark overroast) I take a small sip of both, and then blend, usually 80–20 in favour of the lighter roast.

When the medium/medium dark has no real character on its own, I don't mind borrowing a little character from the creosote/Talisker family tree.

Nothing screams Indonesian jungle sea-level plantation like an oil-pan dark roast.

Re:Good to know for job interviews.

[Darinbob]

What if I don't drink coffee?

A “new study”

[93 Escort Wagon]

From 2015?

not the best that science has to offer

[jds91md]

1) "new" study? Published 2015. Someone is just catching up on their reading, although why they'd read this... 2) psych testing and surveys via Amazon Mechanical Turk? -- JS

"people has"

[PopeRatzo]

A new study conducted at the University of Innsbruck in Austria finds that people who drink their coffee black often has psychopathic or sadistic traits.

I like my coffee like I like my opium: strong and black. My sadistic trait is ridiculing people who can't use basic grammar.

Re: "people has"

[Cmdln Daco]

Your sadistic trait is getting up in the morning and looking in the mirror.

Re:"people has"

[burtosis]

You have several sadistic traits, please don't stop drinking black coffee or slashdot will be that much more boring.

Re:"people has"

[PopeRatzo]

... such as people who use "like" when they mean "as" ?

That's just pedantic. I was using a variation on a well-known saying. If I'd used "as" it would have spoiled the effect.

Re:"people has"

[PopeRatzo]

You have several sadistic traits,

Stop, I hate flattery.

Re: "people has"

[PopeRatzo]

Your sadistic trait is getting up in the morning and looking in the mirror.

Wow, what does that even mean? It's the functional of equivalent of when someone tells you you're stupid and you answer, "Yeah, your face is stupid!"

Re:"people has"

[plopez]

I like it like I like my women; cold black and bitter.

Re: "people has"

[Cmdln Daco]

It means "yow! it must hurt to see yourself in the mirror!"

Re: "people has"

[PopeRatzo]

It means "yow! it must hurt to see yourself in the mirror!"

Wait, but why would it hurt? I have a rather pleasing face. I see it through my wife and daughter's eyes. When I look in the mirror, I basically just see my Dad, who passed back in the early 2000s. So it's the opposite of hurting. It makes me feel a connection to him across time. .

So I'm really note sure what you meant.

Re: "people has"

[Cmdln Daco]

The clue is, not a hell of a lot. Throwaway comment. oh well.

Meanwhile

[heson]

Meanwhile those who order a milkshake disguised as coffee have higher risk developing obesity.

Re:Meanwhile

[dgatwood]

Which means they have more fat, which means higher estrogen, which translates to less sadistic behavior. So perhaps drinking black coffee causes sadism?

"Moderate"?

[grasshoppa]

What do they consider "moderate"?

Not this shit again

[ArchieBunker]

This piece of shit study is making the rounds again. So I guess all the douche bros who like IPA beer are psychos? Makes sense.

Re:Not this shit again

[arth1]

So I guess all the douche bros who like IPA beer are psychos?

No, but 100% of douche bros who like IPA beer are douche bros.

Re:Not this shit again

[DNS-and-BIND]

Anti intellectualism on display, folks. Get a load of the science denier. Please cite studies that refute the premise. Some scientists found an interesting correlation, published it, and all you've got is an emotional response because the conclusions make you uncomfortable? And you attempt to shift the blame on another societal group? Isn't that exactly what we criticize anti intellectuals for doing when confronted with inconvenient truths?

Re:Not this shit again

[avandesande]

Most IPAs are gross they use hops to cover up off taste from poor brewing.

Re:Not this shit again

[ArchieBunker]

Right here ya cunt https://scholarship.rollins.ed...

Page 14 of the PDF, first paragraph. They found the opposite of the original study.

Re:Not this shit again

[ArchieBunker]

Agreed. Dark ales are so much nicer.

Re:Not this shit again

[The Evil Atheist]

You mean the paragraph that also says this?

Despite the improvements to overall objectivity by establishing non - naturalistic means of comparing tastes, our sample population (n=40) was unlikely to yield results with high internal validity given the size of the original study (n=953). In addition to the disadvantage faced with a much smaller participant population, the laboratory portion of the experiment itself also left great room for improvement.

Re:Not this shit again

[thegarbz]

Someone had some black coffee this morning...

Re:Not this shit again

[ArchieBunker]

Never been outside the US I take it? Aussies call their friends cunts all the time. And no cunt is not the same as calling someone a n1gger.

Re:Not this shit again

[RespekMyAthorati]

Get a load of the science denier

What science?

One question

[fahrbot-bot]

Does the study say anything about people that have their own brand of coffee?

[ Asking for a friend. ]

Re:One question

[cascadingstylesheet]

Does the study say anything about people that have their own brand of coffee?

[ Asking for a friend. ]

No, but there is an appendix about people who have their own brand of salad dressing.

Re: Health choice = Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a calm, well adjusted and seriously nice guy who likes his coffee black. That shouldn't be considered a problem. If you think it's an issue just say it to my face and you'll see just how much of problem it can be asshole.

I dom't drink coffee

[rossdee]

or tea

I drink Mt Dew

(preferably Throwback or Ice)

Re:I dom't drink coffee

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I drink Mt Dew

. . . you don't drink coffee . . . yet . . . :

Mountain Dew Users May Go On To Use Harder Beverages:

https://www.theonion.com/mount...

So we know now

[bongey]

How BeauHD likes his coffee.

Still not enough reason...

[roc97007]

...to put cream in my coffee.

health reasons

[schematix]

Of course coffee tastes better when you add sugar and cream to it. Just about everything tastes better when you add sugar and fat. I choose to drink my coffee black for health reasons, not because i prefer it that way. I don't want to prematurely rot my teeth or add what would amount to a candy bar worth of sugar to my diet every day just to consume caffeine. I drink tea without sugar for the same reason. I challenge the readers of this post to observe their coworkers. Is their a correlation because being overweight and how you drink your coffee? The results will not be shocking. Even more so when you look at the people who consume the Starbucks coffee milkshakes regularly.

Re:health reasons

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Just about everything tastes better when you add sugar and fat.

Just about everything tastes better when you add ketchup and bacon.

I haven't seen it anywhere with coffee, though.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the readers to try it with their coffee.

Re: health reasons

[dsgrntlxmply]

Old school American Southern cooking comes close with red-eye gravy. Pan fry some ham, then deglaze the pan with black coffee. Serve on grits or biscuits, with a side order of sociopathy.

Re:health reasons

[The Evil Atheist]

No one said it made you sociopath or sadist. Even with the questionable study, they said it was "likely" one was associated with the other.

"Likely" does not mean "cause of", and the study doesn't make that claim.

Re:health reasons

[BronsCon]

Ketchup contains a lot of sugar; bacon contains a lot of fat. That's why people like ketchup and bacon.

Re:health reasons

[DNS-and-BIND]

You're changing the topic from the link between black coffee and psychopathy to attempt to stigmatize overweight people. Don't you think they're picked on enough already?

Frankly, this sounds to me like the kind of everyday sadism they talk about in the article.

Re: health reasons

[dunkelfalke]

Tea with sugar tastes like crap and the only fat gut at work - that would be me, by the way - doesn't drink coffee at all.

Re:health reasons

[thegarbz]

Just about everything tastes better when you add sugar and fat.

It sounds like your tastebuds have been ruined by overexposure to sugary substances. Quit sugar for a month and you will in fact find that most things taste like shit when sugar is added just to sweeten.

Re: health reasons

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I have always simply seen those meals as efficient:
Step 0 - castiron pan
fry bacon, make coffee
fry hardtack biscuits in leftover bacon grease
degrease pan with leftover coffee
use greaseCoffee as gravy for biscuits

End result - pan is clean, no washup except the cup used to make coffee, breakfast cheap/delicious, squeezed for every last calorie.

Depends on the coffee

[Octorian]

If I'm making coffee at home, I nearly always drink it black. I also make sure to use enough grounds, often grind the beans fresh, and use good filtered water.

If I'm drinking coffee while out-and-about, there's a very chance that they don't use enough grounds or filtered water. In this case, I always add cream and sugar to help make it taste better. (Or its simply kept way too hot to be drinkable unless I cool it down with cream or let it sit for a while.)

Re: Depends on the coffee

[Cmdln Daco]

People way over-emphasize grinding the beans fresh. It's far more important how long ago the beans were roasted.

Re: Depends on the coffee

[ceoyoyo]

Even more important than that is to make the coffee properly.

People who are used to filtered coffee swill that's sat and stewed on a burner for a while are always surprised when I give them some black coffee from a french press.

Re: Depends on the coffee

[avandesande]

They've done legit double blind studies and drip coffee is considered best.

Were they studying the preferences of ...

[rnturn]

... the drinkers of actual coffee? Or those that buy that dreck that Starbucks sells that's only barely palatable after being larded up with all sorts of high-calorie additives?

Re:Not remotely causal

[roc97007]

Shit like this does not deserve attention. Correlation is not causation. Looking for correlations and suggesting causation is tantamount to scientific perjury. I have never been more ashamed to be human than I am right now, but I can say that every day: the world gives an unending stream of reasons to be ashamed of it.

Enh, don't feel ashamed to be a human. If you're a researcher at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, feel free to feel ashamed, otherwise no. With several billion people on the planet, researchers trying for fame or money instead of science, and a news system that gravitates to crap sensationalist news to sell ad space, you're going to get stuff like this.

Now that I write all that, I'm starting to feel ashamed to be a human also.

JANEWAY!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This one fact completely explains pretty much the entire series of Star Trek Voyager.

2915 is not "new"

[thomasoa]

The PDF says it is from 2015.

Re:2915 is not "new"

[q4Fry]

I was going to make a typo joke about how nobody drinks coffee anymore in "2915," but we've been drinking beer for much longer than 897 years. Coffee has a couple centuries in its own right.

Re:psudoscience masquerading as real science

[youngone]

Economists are more like priests than scientists. Economics is just another stupid religion.

Who paid for that study?

[lnxguy]

I didn't know Frappuccino lobbyists had enough pocket change to pay for such unbiased research... I guess I'm just psychopathic because I don't like foo foo in my coffee...

What they forgot to mention

[ceoyoyo]

Is that their whole models have R^2 somewhere between 0.01 and 0.06. That's for all the tastes and the higher end of those correlations is for all the dark personality traits too.

Oh, and liking salty things was a stronger predictor of sadism than bitter was.

I beg to differ

[Plortzod]

I used to put cream and sugar in my coffee, eat processed foods, and drink cheap beer. I was a very nice caring person before this diet rewired my brain. Now that I'm psychotic and sadistic, I'm starting to feel a preference for black coffee. Oh, and IPA beer and extra sharp cheddar cheese too.

OR they have been in the military or camping

[furry_wookie]

OR maybe they have been in the military or go camping where you don't have all the foo foo creamers, sweetners and syrups.

Re: OR they have been in the military or camping

[meglon]

And as long as you don't get the dehydrated beef or pork patties, they're not near as bad as people make them out to be.Mind you, those may no longer be an option.... they were a bane in my day.

Nonsense

[glenebob]

I love black coffee, radishes, bitter-sweet chocolate, and gin and tonic. And I hope everyone involved in this study dies in a fire.

Regional variations

[burtosis]

I'm from the Midwest where sharp cheddar counts as spicy food. Is this study still valid?

Re:response

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coffee achiever you are!

Interesting 70th Data-Point

[gerald.edward.butler]

I drink a lot of black, strong coffee. Ground fresh.

Re:Interesting 70th Data-Point

[gerald.edward.butler]

Any you are a fool who thinks they actually understand people. You should take your armchair psychology and go cry in group therapy about how you were abused as a child and that nobody respects your identify. Go fuck yourself.

Re:Interesting 70th Data-Point

[gerald.edward.butler]

We can all see your fake-ass worthlessness. Just kill yourself. Get it over with. You are not needed or wanted. Your mama wanted to kill you when she crapped you out in the bathroom stall of the truck-stop diner where she turned tricks for crack, but, some do-gooder stopped her. You were supposed to be flushed down the toilet. You need to fix things so the world will be back in balance.

Re:whoami

[HornWumpus]

Covered in nice bitter dark chocolate.

4 cups a day + at least a liter of sparkling water

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch your back, y'all. /maniacal laugh.

Coffee freaks know the truth

[TigerPlish]

The better the coffee, the less sugar (or other additives) it needs.

I'd rather be a psychopath...

[redshirt]

than a pumpkin spice latte sipping basic bitch.

Correlation != causation.

[msauve]

"people who drink their coffee black often has"

People who post trivial correlations often produce grammar errors.

That explains a lot...

[Grog6]

I just thought it was all those years of crappy university coffee made me like assembler.

I started with M68k assembler; it was beautiful. Even with only 16MB.

Then x86 Assembler, it's like "WTF are these 4k pages!??"
X86-64 is nice.

I've been doing PIC assembler for the last few years; I miss having memory, lol. :)

Re:That explains a lot...

[BronsCon]

You mean you forget what having memory is like?

Re:That explains a lot...

[TechyImmigrant]

I just thought it was all those years of crappy university coffee made me like assembler.

I started with M68k assembler; it was beautiful. Even with only 16MB.

Then x86 Assembler, it's like "WTF are these 4k pages!??"
X86-64 is nice.

I've been doing PIC assembler for the last few years; I miss having memory, lol. :)

I started with 6502 assembler. 68K assembler was indeed a beautiful thing.

+1 #MeToo.

[Grog6]

Lol.

I'm more like Bill Cosby; I like my women like I like my coffee, Black, and ready to pass out.

Re:+1 #MeToo.

[pezezin]

I'll see you and raise you: I like my women like I like my whisky, 12 years old.

I guess I need to know if it still black coffee

[bobstreo]

if you drink it mixed with the blood of your enemies?

Wow a Slashdot Article without any Politics ...

[jodokast98]

Colour me impressed, as you'd think the typical /. crowd these days would say, "Voldemort likes their covfefe black, that's why Voldemort is a psychopath / sociopath." Oh well, back to some more Hypercaffium Spazzinate!

I take my coffee black.

[plopez]

It doesn't affect me. I'm going to find the POS authors of the study and kick the shit out of them.

What About Hitler?

[I75BJC]

I was taught that Hitler liked sugar on everything and Hitler is the Quintessential Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath. Hitler kind of breaks their "study".

Re:This is stupid huge ass junk food science.

[bagofbeans]

Yes

Silence of the Beans

[seoras]

"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Starbucks Americano."

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Commissary

[BankRobberMBA]

In the Feds they sell instant coffee, nondairy creamer, and artificial sweetener on the Commissary.

Re:Commissary

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you come by that information Mr BankRobberMBA?

Re:Commissary

[Highdude702]

A lot more people than you think have been to prison. Even more have known somebody close to them that was in prison. This is just common knowledge. Do you think you really get bread and water?(thats county time)

Re:Commissary

[BankRobberMBA]

Um, full disclosure, FWIW. I am a convicted felon.

2x Bank robbery - guilty
1x Armed bank robbery - guilty
1x "924C" Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence (Armed bank robbery) - guilty
1x Carjacking - maybe
1x "924C" Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence (Carjacking) - charge dropped in exchange for a plea of guilty on the other four charges**.

*: I'm still not convinced I met the elements of the crime for carjacking. I ordered the bank employee to surrender their keys so I could escape in their car. Same thing in the previous two robberies, cars recovered in less than an hour each time. The carjacking statute requires use of violence with intent to cause injury, which didn't happen. However, charging a second violent crime (carjacking) allowed them to also charge a second 924C.

**: The first 924C conviction carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. A second conviction requires a mandatory minimum of 25 years. I had 30 years on the table before we even started talking about the robberies and the carjacking. They said they'd drop the second 924C in exchange for an immediate guilty plea on the remaining four charges and I almost broke my fingers reaching for the pen to sign it. I got a little over 10 years and served about 8.5 after good time and halfway house placement.

Re:Commissary

[Hognoxious]

Do they have criemer too?

Re:Commissary

[Falos]

I just realized that lawyers line up their combos exactly the way gamers stack character stats.

"don't get the +60% crit potion, the game doesn't even register crit over 50, so get the +35% crit +35% haste one"

They're just like me. When I'm trying to annihilate a digital zombie as viciously as I can. I put together spreadsheets just so I can calculate an extra superfluous inch of boot up their ass, as if I'm some kind of coffee-chewing psychopathic sadist who loves fucking up zombies like I have no higher purpose. And within the tiny constraints of possibility in a video game (eg original mario = "go right") I don't.

They could probably give me some tips on juggling buffs.

Re:Commissary

[Paradise Pete]

Why did you do this? What was the underlying cause, not "for the money," I mean.

Re:Commissary

[Highdude702]

He said hes busy and cant leave a message.. But he asked me to get your address for him.

Welp.

[Cinnamon Beige]

Hey, come on, an R^2 of 0.02 is really strong correlation!

Is that what they found? Then the tl;dr of the study is "We gotta publish something and this is something." I kind of think that, until we can fix publish-or-perish so you can afford to take the time to do quality research and probably even afterwards, we need a journal or two with titles like Unusual Results in Science--for when your research pretty much returned inconclusive or surreal results of the "Somehow the math returned a result of apple" sort. It'd probably do a decent bit towards the possible problems caused by having the actually normal results possibly not being the ones published--and, well, just because your experiment returned surreal results doesn't mean it might not be scientifically useful. (Even if it may raise new and disturbing questions like "Why are the laws of physics apparently different within a meter of J. Random, the theoretical physicist???")

Re:Welp.

[ceoyoyo]

Well... real correlations with crappy R2 do mean that there's some connection between the two things. Which *might* be interesting, depending. Their highlight "Results suggest close relationship between the gustatory system and personality" isn't supported by the results and should have gotten shot down in flames by the reviewers, and there's really no justification at all why anybody should care about some barely there relationship between taste preference and personality.

I did find it interesting in their literature review that apparently in other studies preference for sweetness indeed correlated with lower sadism, but also lower openness. So those sugar lovers don't take pleasure in your pain, but they're also lying shits.

Re:Welp.

[Cinnamon Beige]

Well... real correlations with crappy R2 do mean that there's some connection between the two things.

First off, there's spurious correlations--where the most reasonable explanation for a statistically significant correlation (where the R2 is actually a very high value) is that it's just a really, really, really weird coincidence. This site lets you explore examples, and some have a very strong R^2 while also being quite unlikely to actually have a correlation--for example, the divorce rate in Maine correlates to the per capita consumption of margarine with an R^2 of 0.99...but there is no reasonable mechanism by which one could influence the other. That's actually part of why you're generally supposed to include some sort of theory when you're trying to show correlations, unless your goal is to create demonstrations of why it's wrong to assume that correlation even implies connection, no less causation.

Next, a R^2 of 0.02 is...fantastically low. The range is from 0 to 1, because it's basically a ratio. You can think of it very accurately as a measure of how well the line you just drew on the graph paper correlates to the data points--with 1 being the point at which it's perfect and 0 being where it has no relationship whatsoever.

Last? The usual cutoff for statistical significance in psych research is 0.05. Statistical significance is the point where you feel the correlation is strong enough that it isn't just cause by error--and one major cause of error is choosing a too-low threshold. And, well, 0.02 is less than half the normal threshold...

Re:Welp.

[TechyImmigrant]

R^2 is not the same thing as statistical significance. SS is the probability you would get that level of result with the null hypothesis being true. R^2 is the measure of the relationship.

Re:Welp.

[JaredOfEuropa]

sugar lovers don't take pleasure in your pain, but they're also lying shits

Now that would have made an awesome summary...

Re:Welp.

[Cinnamon Beige]

The number I suspect you're trying to talk about is literally the statement of what you decided was the value you decided would be the minimum in the stat of importance as an indicator of statistical significance; the value for this is set by norms more than anything else, and tells you mostly about the researchers and their expectations. The R of R^2 is the correlation coefficient, and R^2 can pretty much be read as a mathematical representation of the correlation of your line to the data--the higher it is, the more likely your line actually has a strong relationship with the data points.

I'm actually looking at this as a psych person as it is in one of my fields and I'm not sure I'd actually have bothered trying to get this paper published because it's clickbait-quality...which is why I'm unwilling to even try to get at its abstract and see what the statistical results are. That should be the last line of the abstract in a modern psych paper when it is reporting new research where statistics were done. I'd only leave it out of such if my actual research is about quality control in academic publishing...and I'm creating a deliberately bad paper in hopes of collecting rejection letters. (I'd probably have some subtler indications of my data being faked in there as well, on the off chance an editor decides to look it over to see if I should be told to resubmit with the formatting and style errors fixed...)

Re:Welp.

[TechyImmigrant]

I was referring to this sequence...

> Next, a R^2 of 0.02 is...fantastically low.
then
> The usual cutoff for statistical significance in psych research is 0.05.
then
> And, well, 0.02 is less than half the normal threshold...

Comparing the p value to R^2. Not the same thing.

Re:Welp.

[ceoyoyo]

I think an interesting study might be to look at whether people who score a little bit higher on sadism and also on openness (i.e. those who like the taste of coffee) are just people who are more likely to tell you the truth about that ugly sweater. Conversely, the ones who put sugar in their coffee, score lower on sadism and lower on openness, are the ones who'll tell you whatever you want to hear to spare your feelings.

Re:Welp.

[ceoyoyo]

People misunderstand what correlation means. A correlation is a real, causal connection between two things (although it does not specify the type of causality). You may have *data* that erroneously shows a correlation. The chances of that happening are quantified by the p-value, *not* R. R can be low for all sorts of reasons, including that your measure(s) are noisy. Surveys and psychological instruments are generally highly noisy. R^2 is a measure of the strength of the correlation as captured by your methods and indicated by your data but says nothing about the likelihood of a false positive.

The website you reference is highly entertaining, and also statistically terrible. They don't give p-values for their purported spurious correlations and looking at them, most have very, very few datapoints and so may not be significant even in isolation. To say nothing of the fact that they've done many, many, many comparisons to find their material, which means they should be correcting the p-values they neglect to show. Note that the R values for all the comparisons on that page are very high.

Others, like the first one on the page, a correlation between US spending on science and suicide by hanging and suffocation is something you'd expect: the two things are likely both related to population, i.e. a type 3 causal relationship.

Re:Welp.

[ceoyoyo]

"The R of R^2 is the correlation coefficient, and R^2 can pretty much be read as a mathematical representation of the correlation of your line to the data--the higher it is, the more likely your line actually has a strong relationship with the data points."

Sorry, this is absolutely wrong. The R/R^2 describes how much of the variance in one *measurement* can be explained by another measurement. It doesn't say anything about a relationship beyond that. If your measurements are crappy, your R will be low, regardless of the strength of the actual relationship you're trying to measure. The R^2 says *nothing* about the likelihood of the relationship existing or not. That's the p-value, which is just as "mathematical" as R.

The web page you linked as an example of spurious correlations has examples of comparisons with all high to very high R values that are clearly not real correlations.

The value *you* seem to be referring to is alpha, which is the a priori *threshold* for p that you choose to accept as the definition for "significant." This is usually chosen based on norms in the field, which are generally not arbitrary, but have evolved in response to the differential cost of type I and II errors.

Re:Welp.

[noodler]

"the divorce rate in Maine correlates to the per capita consumption of margarine with an R^2 of 0.99...but there is no reasonable mechanism by which one could influence the other. "

Interpreting statistics 101: Correlation is not evidence of causation.
You don't need A to influence B to have a correlation. Both can be influenced by C.

When a car moves there is a very very very strong correlation between the movement of the back seat and the movement of the front mirror. And yet neither is directly influencing the movement of the other. Correlation is not causation. And you wouldn't say that this correlation is based on coincidence, right?

So you can't conclude that the correlation from TFA must be a coincidence, tho you can't rule out coincidence.

Re:4 cups a day + at least a liter of sparkling wa

[rnturn]

Everyday psychopaths beware: There are days when I've been known to drink the whole pot (black, of course).

Now you tell me

[Trailer Trash]

Not joking, this popped up on /. two minutes after the guy beside me on the plane ordered a straight black coffee.

Re:psudoscience masquerading as real science

[mschuyler]

Agreed. Ted Bundy* was a psychology major (UW, 1972)

* I went to high school with Ted Bundy.

Explains rarity

[SuperKendall]

What the studies in question actually do is correlate a generalized preference for bitter tastes to antisocial personality traits

The conclusion that psychopaths enjoy bitter taste explains why we do not see more of them - they keep drinking cyanine for the sheer delight of it.

ROFL

[angel'o'sphere]

If you drink black coffee that is bitter, or even worse: sour, you are a masochist, not a sadist.
I love black coffee ... but it seems I can afford brands that are not bitter.

Good sample of horribly bad data analysis

[CustomSolvers2]

Even by ignoring the evident arbitrariness of wanting (or needing? Who is funding this study?) to see a relevant meaning in something like how you like your coffee or what kind of tastes you prefer (out of the billions of possible variables affecting/defining someone's routine today or in the past); it isn't even required to highlight that ignoring tremendously influential external factors (e.g., culture/country, physical features or personality traits/ideology) converts these conclusions in virtually random; I might even not say anything about the extremely limited population under consideration (1000 adults!? From that you expect to get any kind of insight about most of people in the world? You cannot be serious!). All what I need to do to deem the conclusions of this study (as per my current understanding, created from quickly reading the title and the summary) irrelevant is to look at a personal experience which proves some of its basic assumptions completely wrong.

Let's focus on the dark coffee issue (honestly, I don't know how to classify my food tastes like I guess that everyone else: I like some bitter things, but also sweet ones. Who in the whole world is only liking either bitter or sweet things?!). Usually, I drink my coffee with milk, but I have also been drinking it dark for some periods. The reason? I don't really drink coffee because of its taste (well... I have got so used to it, that I guess that I would miss it what kind of means that I like it), but because of its effects. During certain periods of my life and under different conditions (e.g., not having an immediate/easy access to good milk), I haven't minded to drink it dark because, even despite not liking its taste much, it didn't seem like a big deal of an effort. If you had surveyed me during one of those periods, I would have said that I drink black coffee. But if you surveyed me now or at many other different points of my life, I would have said the opposite. Both answers would have been 100% accurate, my personality would be more or less identical and the conclusions of a tremendously-wrong "study" on these lines would be wrong.

So, let's assume that we have surveyed a relevant number of people, that we have properly classified them (by country, gender, age, background, etc.). Let's also assume that we are talking about a really-influential-for-personality variable (I don't know... anything but how you drink your coffee?). Even if you are in that nearly-perfect scenario and you do a really good analysis of all the data, your conclusions would turn out useless if you fail to adequately understand the exact implications of your underlying assumptions, mainly of the ones used in the main variables. In this case, they are assuming that drinking coffee in certain way is necessarily related to liking bitter things what, as proven by the previous paragraph, isn't necessarily true. You might even dismiss that aspect and focus on what "liking bitter things" implies. How many different foods/drinks can people take daily/monthly/during their whole life? If you list 5 options and someone likes 4 of them, it might not mean that that person tends to like more bitter things than another one choosing just 1, because by considering a much wider spectrum of options things could be completely different.

So in Italy all are sadistic?

[havana9]

Because, everybody in Italy likes espresso, or lungo. You better stop asking for a cappuccino after noon and if you ask a latte you'll get a glass of frothed milk.

Good news: It's Right! Bad News: its right

[Sinesurfer]

Possibly true. Okay, almost-certainly true (in the purest statistical sense) when you ask if we'd like an Americano or milk or syrup with that. I do however tip the guy that asks if it's "an extra shot day" 'cos some days, we need the extra shot of caffeine and he that delivers extra caffeine is a saint and safe from any harm forever!!

Half and Half, but radishes?

[sabbede]

I don't take my coffee black (anymore), don't like to create pain, but do like radishes. What does this mean!?!??!?!?! DEAR GOD WHAT AM I!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Quit Fucking with my Equal-Ibrium

[turp182]

I wrote this back in 2000, regarding my iced tea.

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Iâ(TM)m sick and fucking tired of pansy-ass punk waiters refilling my tea before Iâ(TM)m ready for a refill. If I told you once, I told you a million times to stop fucking with my Equal-ibrium. I get that perfect balance, that perfect ratio of tea to sweetener and you come along and screw it up. I find that sweet spot and you take a shit in my glass. I want to kill you.

Itâ(TM)s not easy to get that perfection in the glass. Sometimes it can take a good five to ten minutes to let the ice melt just a little so the tea hits itâ(TM)s plateau. Then it takes a few more adding the Equal until I get that taste I like. So I spent some 15 minutes perfecting this glass on my table, and damn, itâ(TM)s good. Iâ(TM)m thinking about how well itâ(TM)s going to work with the bread and the spaghetti. Itâ(TM)s gonna be fucking awesome.

So I have a couple of drinks, closing my eyes and just whisking by on the magic carpet that is a perfect glass of tea.

Then you come up and start pouring first, and then ask, âoeMore tea, sir?â

âoeFuck no,â I reply. Now since youâ(TM)re already pouring you gonna realize that somethingâ(TM)s up.

But when I stand up and smash your head with my fists you gonna be thinking you shouldnâ(TM)t have topped off my glass.

As I poke our your eyes you gonna wish you ainâ(TM)t never seem me or my glass of tea.

As I cut out your tongue you gonna wish you never asked to take my order.

As I gouge your stomach with my fork you gonna be thinking you shouldnâ(TM)t have had that bagel for breakfast. They ainâ(TM)t as good as people make them up to be.

As I come back from my car with the chainsaw and start dismembering your body you gonna wish you never worked this dead-end job in the first place. Ainâ(TM)t no living making minimum wage.

And when I finally douse your corpse with gasoline, right there in the dining area, and light it up you ainâ(TM)t gonna be wishing or thinking anything. Cause youâ(TM)ll be dead, you sorry-ass tea-refilling mother-fucker.

Itâ(TM)ll be worth going back to prison. In the joint you refill you own glass. And thatâ(TM)s the way it should be.

Wonderful!

[Sqreater]

Now tell us about the various topping selections for pizza and human pathology! Mine THAT source of insight to human behavior! Wow, the worlds of understanding this opens up! How about people who like hot peppers of various degrees of heat? Sick bastards!

I like my women . . .

[hduff]

I like my women like I like my coffee . . . dark and bitter.

Black?

[BankRobberMBA]

Lol, no. Milky white and extremely sweet!

I take my coffee as black as my soul.

[HeckRuler]

So... looots of milk and chocolate. Hell, just throw a snickers bar in there. Whipping on top if possible.

What matters is prediction

[jd]

Correlation is worthless.

Is the gene for bitterness preference one of those linked to psychopathy?

Emotional endurance and comfort.

[Qbertino]

I think this correlation is plausible and pretty straight forward. I'm a full-blown sugar-milk-coffee guy and usually too nice for my own good. I expect people who drink their coffee black to be more at home with ignoring unpleasant taste or even enjoying the challenge that comes with bearing less pleasant sensations. That such people are also more sarcastic or like to prod people's emotions more than I would would fit that picture.

Something Lost In the Study.

[wahini]

I roast my own coffee which is high quality before I even roast it. The coffee I make is not bitter, I don't leave it on a hot plate to get bitter, so I like it black. So what this article is really about is people who drink lousy coffee black. I do understand how drinking shitty, bitter, acidic coffee can drive someone crazy. Some of us prefer great tasting coffee, and are more likely to drink good coffee black.

So just because I happen to be crazy, doesn't mean it is because of the great black coffee I drink.

This study was published in Readers Digest

[newbie_fantod]

C'mon SlashDot, you're supposed to have at least some respect for Science.

Stacking charges

[BankRobberMBA]

Yep. That's pretty much how it works.

Very abbreviated "why"

[BankRobberMBA]

I was a pipelayer for a long time. I blew up one of my knees and lost that career. I knew nothing about disability, so I was kind of foundering.

My mom worked at a state university and talked me into trying college (I was a high-school dropout). I went to school and Vocational Rehabilitation paid for it. Turns out I love college. I graduated Magna Cum Laude. I went on to GSU and got an MBA. I struggled to get a job (a little old for a new degree, and I am not good with people.) I worked some with my douchebag uncle, but he couldn't really pay me. I was broke, like really broke.

My dad was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He got really bad and I started reaching out to government and nonprofits for help. Nobody really had much to offer except for counseling for me on dealing with emotions about it. Then my dad got hurt and died suddenly. I got either very angry or slightly crazy. I blamed myself and society both for my father's death.

"You won't help my dad because I have no money? Okay, I know where they keep it." So I went and got some. Then six months later, I went and got some more. Then, six months after that, I was trying to stop (I was pretty much sane by then), but I was broke and my mom got sick, so...

Third time's the charm. I was caught coming out of the bank carrying $40,000 of other people's money. I got 130 months in federal prison, earned all of my good time, and have been out since march 2016.

This is a really compressed version, but I think it hits all of the high points.

Underlying cause? Lots of candidates. I've always had a hard time getting jobs (good at keeping them though...) and I'm pretty socially awkward. Obviously, anger management was a problem for me, less so now, I think. I think I felt a lot of impotence about a lot of things in my life all at once, and I couldn't see a way forward. I also kind of felt like life was playing me for a sucker somehow. So, there's me, lashing out. Lucky I didn't get shot. Or hurt someone else.

Re: Very abbreviated "why"

[Anonymous Coward]

So why is an MBA on slashdot?

Re:Very abbreviated "why"

[Paradise Pete]

thanks for the reply. Good luck to you going forward.

Re:Possible Explanation

[butchersong]

Maybe, it could reasonably be that the ability to appreciate something in the abstract because it is "distinct" or or interesting -bitterness for example- would indicate someone able to appreciate the sadist's less conventionally pleasurable pastimes as well.

Correlation does not imply causation

[brianwilson12]

Why do we need to correlate everything about anything? and also, the research didn't mean drinking black coffee it may cause psychopathic or sadistic traits. It only means a connection of the two but not the actual cause.

MBA on Slashdot

[BankRobberMBA]

Always loved computers and technology. Better with machines than people. My BBA concentration was MIS and my MBA concentration was CIS.

Funny that the MBA seems to belong less than the bank robber...