Abstract
Given that we use taste-related metaphors to describe individuals, might basic gustatory sensations actually influence our judgments of others? Fifty-five undergraduates sampled otherwise identical sweet or sour beverages and rated hypothetical individuals on various personality dimensions. Taste influenced judgments on composite personality measures and ratings of individual personality traits: participants sampling a sweet beverage rated an individual's personality sweeter than those sampling a sour beverage, with larger differences generally observed for traits more strongly associated with the sweet-sour metaphor. Our impressions of others (and their impressions of us) depend not only on actions and utterances, then, but also on other superficially unrelated (yet metaphorically meaningful) sensory experiences such as the taste of a beverage recently consumed - a finding with potentially important implications for social interactions, impression management, and related decisions.
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