Do you want to take a few tequila shots? Maybe not while you’re reading this article. But if you would, then we’ve got some news for you. How do you feel when you drink a little too much booze? Uh! That awkward (maybe amazing) moment when you feel like you’re the party’s beast, dancing offbeat, singing badder than Kanye, or suddenly getting emotional with that guy or girl you just met. Oh no! However or whatever you feel, that’s still you. According to research, your drunk alter ego isn’t a separate identity at all. That’s the real you, pal.
Related media: What Happens When You’re Drunk?
Debunking Your Drunkenness
How old are you? Never mind, if you’re of a legal drinking age in your country or state, we’ve got news — whether its news you’re already aware of, or not. Research says that your boozed self is probably not as far off from your actual personality as you thought it was.
Obviously, we know you might disagree with this one, but hold on a second and bare with us. Though you might feel like a completely different person when you’re high and dang tipsy at the bar; researchers claim that’s still you. Like yeah, its you not us, right?
In a 2017 study published in the Clinical Psychological Science, found that your drunk persona does’t differ from your sober one, more or less. Hmmm?! Basically, you’re always that special, unique and wonderful beast that you’ve always been, no matter how much tequilas you ridiculously ingested before singing badder than Kanye. Remember, that’s still you.
Your Booze Meets Science
For the sake of this so-called “boozing” study, researchers from the University of Missouri and Purdue University sought to specifically test their hypothesis, if “differences between sober and intoxicated personality expression can be observed reliably” by participants during some drunk game-playing. (Writing about this even made us feel tipsy).
A couple of weeks prior to the experiment, the researchers recruited 156 participants (like that’s a lot of boozers) to complete a survey describing their typical “sober” and “drunk” personalities.
Next, the researchers gave half of the participants some booze, then had their friends (sober) join them in the lab to play games meant to bring out different personality traits. The boozers eventually rated their own in-the-moment personality traits during the session while trained (and sober) observers assessed similar traits.
While the boozers noted personality differences in themselves while drunk, the sober observers didn’t notice (though controversial) any significant difference between their sober and drunk personalities — though the drinks made those participants more extroverted. No wonder.
Whether Drunk Or Sober, That’s Still You
“We were surprised to find such a discrepancy between drinkers’ perceptions of their own alcohol-induced personalities and how observers perceived them,” said Rachel Winograd, a psychological scientist at the University of Missouri, and the study’s led author, in a press release. “Participants reported experiencing differences in all factors of the Five Factor Model of personality, but extraversion was the only factor robustly perceived to be different across participants in alcohol and sober conditions.”
By now, you might be wondering, why on Earth does boozing makes you feel like you’re a completely different person altogether? Short answer: That’s probably the Placebo effect. What this means is that if you have a notion in your mind that taking tequila makes you freaking or that wine gets you emotional, your brain will only heighten those expressions.
And that’s what makes you feel like you’re a different person, but spoiler, you’re not. Sounds impressive we big brain apes. Cheers to the freaking weekend!
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Written by: Nana Kwadwo, Sat, Apr 13, 2019.
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