“A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.” –
Charlie Chaplin
Known
as ‘liquid courage,’ alcohol is often credited for bringing out a different
side of ourselves, a hidden ‘drunk self.’ This version of yourself may be
louder, wilder, more outgoing or more emotional. If you have ever found
yourself the next day looking back on your wild night and regretting your
actions then you know what I’m talking about… That version of yourself that
only comes out when you a handful of drinks in and leaving all responsibility
at the door.
A
recent study published in ‘Clinical Psychology Science’ reveals a somewhat
startling idea – Your drunk self may actually be a reflection of the real you.
Working with a group of 156 volunteer participants, the team including
researchers out of Purdue University and the University of Missouri determined
that a person, whether drunk or sober, acts incredibly similar.
The
team asked all volunteers to complete a survey two weeks prior to the
experiment describing traits that they associated with both their drunk and
sober sides of their personality. They then split their volunteers up into
groups of approximately 3-4 friends, asking them to drink enough to increase
their blood alcohol level to approximately 90mg (legal limit is 80mg). While
some of the participants were given vodka and Sprite, others were given just
Sprite. Each of the volunteers was asked to complete a number of tasks designed
to highlight various personality traits while a group of sober observers were
looking on.
The
participants believed that their personalities changed in all 5 categories,
rating themselves lower in the areas of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and
openness to experience, and higher in the areas of extraversion and emotional
stability. The observers, however, stated that there were very few differences
to note between both the drunk and sober personalities of the participants.
Rachel
Winograd, a psychological scientist from the University of Missouri explained, “We were surprised to find such a discrepancy
between drinkers’ perceptions of their own alcohol-induced personalities and
how observers perceived them. 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.”
Ultimately,
the study concluded that while a few drinks will likely make you louder or more
outgoing, the rest is all you! That fun-loving and over the top version of
yourself is really just your personality coming through. Embrace it.
Source : awarenessact.com