Bitter Tastes makes us harsher judges

So what do you drink when sitting at your desk, do you go for a plain stilled water or something a little more flavoured?

If you go for the latter, you may need to think about your choice of flavours. Research by Kendall Eskine at the City University of New York found that bitter flavours make us more judgemental. Eskine and colleagues asked 57 volunteers to rate how morally questionable a set of scenarios were on a scale of 1 to 100. Some of the scenarios included a man eating his already-dead dog, cousins engaging in consensual sex.

At the start and again midway through the scenarios, participants were given a bitter drink or water.

Participants given bitter drinks were much tougher in their judgements than those who drank water, giving scenarios a score that was on average 27 per cent higher. It seemed that taste perception significantly affected their moral judgments and the physical disgust (induced via a bitter taste) produced feelings of moral disgust

Participants were also asked if they were political conservatives or liberals. Interestingly, the politically conservative individuals were more strongly affected by bitter tastes than liberals

So if you are taking a client or the boss out for a drink or dinner, try and stay clear of the bitter drinks or food if you are looking to get the OK for some radical proposal. If you want them to judge a rivals proposal harshly, recommend the fish with extra lemon juice, washed down with a glass of Aperol.