Yesterday I went to the movies with some friends to watch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Before hand we stopped off at a favourite haunt for a bite to eat – the Whole Meal cafe in Streatham.

It’s a fav of mine partly because they serve good food, and really good portions, but also because they have a world famous Banoffee Pie. Suffice to say this treasure came in a big ol’ slab as well, so my sweet tooth was suitably catered for.

Anyway, before I slobber too much at the memory of that sugary treat, the point of this blog. I quite like my cakes and assorted sweet things, so it’s interesting to read some research today suggesting that people with sweet tooth’s are naturally sweet people.

The research team asked participants to rate the agreeableness, extroversion and neuroticism of 100 people based on pictures of their face and a sentence identifying their favourite food.

People with a perchance for sweet food were found to be more agreeable than those without a sweet tooth. It seems a similar connection is made when we rate ourselves as well. Students who rated their own personality as more agreeable also tended to have a stronger preference (than their less agreeable peers) for sweet foods and drinks.

A separate study also found sweet toothed individuals to be more likely to volunteer their time, and thus be considered quite social people.

So it’s easy to see that the sweet toothed are apparently nicer people. The impact of sugar goes yet further though. The impact works if you just give people something sweet to eat. Another study found that simply giving people a piece of chocolate made them more inclined to volunteer their time compared to people given a sour sweet or a cracker.

“We are unaware of any studies showing that taste metaphors are consequential in predicting social functioning, and thus the findings are unique,” the researchers said. Why is there this link between sweet taste and personality and behaviour? Meier and his team think one possible root cause may lie in breast-feeding. “… [H]uman breast milk is decidedly sweet in taste and chemical composition and feeding episodes are marked by a close bond of mother and child,” they observed. “Thus, one of the earliest bases for later emotional attachments is also marked by a sweet-tasting ingested food.”