News

Researchers Find There Are Four Distinct Types Of Drunks In The World

by Eitan Levine

Science can now predict what kind of person you turn into after a few drinks get into your system

Psychology researchers from the University of Missouri published a study in Addiction Research & Theory that put numbers to categorizing the varying effects alcohol has on different people.

The study was conducted on 374 undergraduates at a large Midwestern university and broke down drinkers into four distinct categories: Mary Poppins, Ernest Hemingway, The Nutty Professor and Mr. Hyde.

In the study, 40 percent of participants were described as Hemingways, a playful and probably in-poor-taste reference to the American author who had a legendary alcohol problem.

Hemingways don't have major personality changes and transition from sober to drunk pretty smoothly.

Of the Mary Poppins category, the authors wrote,

[The Mary Poppins is] decreasing less than average in conscientiousness and intellect and increasing more than average in extraversion when drunk.

In other words, your friend who spends the night telling strangers how much she “friggin LOVES Tiffany” is a Mary Poppins.

If you are The Nutty Professor, you're probably the shy one of the group, but you find your inner outgoing-self the second the first shot of Jameson goes down the hatch.

For the Mr. Hyde category, the study authors said,

 [Mr. Hyde] larger decreases in conscientiousness and intellect and smaller increases in extraversion.

So, if you wake up the next morning with a black eye, it's probably because the "more hostile" Mr. Hyde passed by your group of friends and decided he didn't like you for no discernible reason.

Researchers hope the study will help in identifying and better treating specific types of alcoholism.

Which kind of drunk literary figure are you?

Citations: Here Are the Four Types of Drunks According to Science (TIME)