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How the shape of the glass influences our drinking behaviour

17.9.2020

Translation: machine translated

Martini or champagne glass? A series of experiments shows that we drink more or less from a glass depending on whether it is straight or tapered at the bottom.

Sometimes subtle manipulations are enough to steer people's behaviour in a certain direction. For example, studies show that visitors to a canteen are more likely to reach for an apple instead of a chocolate bar if fruit and no sweets are placed near the till. Psychologists refer to the use of such interventions as "nudging" - a kind of gentle nudging in the right direction. Nothing is prescribed and nothing is forbidden, and yet in the end people tend to behave as desired.

The not entirely uncontroversial concept is particularly popular in the health sector. Scientists led by Tess Langfield from the University of Cambridge therefore wanted to find out whether it is possible to subtly "nudge" people to drink less alcohol or sugary soft drinks - simply by adjusting the shape of the glasses in which the drinks are served.

In three different experiments, the researchers compared how test subjects consumed juices that were sometimes served in glasses with straight walls (for example in a champagne glass) and sometimes in glasses that tapered towards the bottom (for example in a martini glass). Langfield and her colleagues discovered this: The participants initially drank more quickly from a narrow-top glass. In another experiment, they also consumed more from a martini glass than from a champagne glass and also took larger sips.

Drinking from glasses with a large opening is more pleasant

According to the researchers' data, this had only a limited amount to do with the fact that the participants sometimes found it more difficult to judge when a narrow-mouthed glass was half full. The size of the glass opening proved to be more decisive, as revealed by an experiment in which the scientists also measured the activity of the facial muscles of 40 participants using electrodes: It simply seems to be more pleasant to drink from a martini glass than from a comparatively narrow champagne glass.

"The results suggest that switching to glasses with a straight rim could reduce the consumption of harmful drinks together with other measures," the scientists write in the journal Scientific Reports. However, only further studies will be able to clarify whether this also applies outside the laboratory - and to what extent the same effect also occurs with alcoholic beverages.

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