Diet and Personality

This 2022 article discusses the connection between personality traits, taste perception, and food behavior. Several personality characteristics have already been linked with several aspects of taste and smell. Personality traits are particularly associated with the ability to identify specific smells and aspects of flavor perception. A person’s openness to new experiences has also been related to a preference for spicy and salty food, and possibly a preference for crunchy, sour, and bitter foods/drinks. Moreover, anxious people appear to enjoy a much narrower range of foods. Other relationships have been identified involving taste, including a bidirectional correlation with mood. Furthermore, certain personality-based differences in taste/flavor perception and food behavior have been associated with varying levels of neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. This study highlights the current evidence on the connections between personality traits and taste perception/food behavior.