Blaming it on the beer might not be as truthful as you think– here’s why.
“I said what?? Oh, man, sorry–I was totally drunk.” It’s a line you might have said or heard more than once, and it seems like a reasonable explanation.
People say and do things when they’re drunk that they swear they’d never do sober. But that excuse might not hold up well, for long.
A new study published in Clinical Psychological Science has found that your personality might not change as much as you think, when you’ve had one too many.
Rachel Winograd of the Missouri Institute of Mental Health and colleagues analyzed the effects of alcohol on a person’s character using something called the Five Factor Model of personality.
156 participants were asked to self-evaluated how they perceived their personalities to change after drinking. Researchers then observed these same participants after around half of them had consumed drinks that brought their blood alcohol levels to about .09. The other half of the group consumed non-alcoholic beverages.
More Extroversion
The drinkers participated in group activities that involved completing puzzles and participating in discussion that allowing them to interact with each other.
It was found that the people who drank thought that they became less conscientious, less agreeable and less likely to try new things. They also felt they were more emotionally stable and extroverted, when drinking.
In contrast, the researchers observing the group found that people who were drinking retained their basic personality traits and simply became more extroverted, active and assertive.
“We were surprised to find such a discrepancy between drinkers’ perceptions of their own alcohol-induced personalities and how observers perceived them,” said Winograd.
What does it mean in the long run? It might not be the vodka speaking. It may simply a more outgoing version of the real deal.
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