Do you want to know how to win friends and influence people? The answer is simple: give them coffee. This may sound like just the ramblings and conjecture of a biased coffee writer—which it definitely is—but now there is science to make it less conjecture-y, though still very ramble-y.
According to PsyPost, a new study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that “drinking coffee before a discussion can help people stay focused and feel better about the people in the conversation.” So it stands to reason, if you want people to feel good about you, give them coffee before the meeting you both will be attending.
Titled “Coffee with co-workers: role of caffeine on evaluations of the self and others in group settings,” the research was authored by Vasu Unnava of the University of California, Davis, who split a total of 134 college students into groups and “had them discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement for 15 minutes.” Unnava found that participants who were instructed to ingest caffeine before the discussion were “better at focusing on the topic at hand” over the uncaffeinated—because no duh—but they also “felt better about themselves and their fellow participants.” These findings coincide with my own research on the subject, tentatively titled “Why Does Everyone Suck So Much, Just Kidding, I’ve Had My First Cup Of Coffee Now And You’re All OK In My Book.”
The research is not without its caveats (theirs, not mine. Mine is flawless). From PsyPost:
“A major caveat is that our coffee drinkers came to the study after staying away from coffee for a few hours,” Unnava told PsyPost. “So, we do not know if the coffee they consumed in the study increased their alertness or it is the decreased alertness in those who consumed decaffeinated coffee that caused the effects reported in the study.”
“Second, we used a topic that the participants generally agreed on. What the results might be if there is disagreement is an interesting issue to study further. Finally, we used only one type of task – group discussion. How coffee may affect people’s performance in other kinds of tasks (e.g., group problem solving, group physical work) is not known.”
Nevertheless, the takeaway here is to always bring coffee to a meeting to curry favor. It works like gangbusters on coffee drinkers. Maybe not so much on non-coffee drinkers, but jam enough of that sweet elixir down their gullets and they’ll get hooked and then we’re back to gangbusters.
Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
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