The Shape of a Glass Can Make Your Shape More Drunk

The shape of your glass could be playing tricks with your mind. Like Leo Messi with Real Madrid defenders or governments with their promises.

“People often talk of ‘pacing themselves’ when drinking alcohol as a means of controlling levels of drunkenness, and I think the important point to take from our research is that the ability to pace effectively may be compromised when drinking from certain types of glasses” – said Dr Angela Attwood from Bristol University. She and her colleagues from the university were studying how different glasses motivate us to drink faster. What they discovered ?

That the pace of drinking is mainly connected to the markers on your glass. Marker can be the black line or anything about the glass shape or look which helps you with realizing how much have you already drunk. If you don’t know, it is harder to control yourself and easier to drink faster.

To test this theory, Attwood and her colleagues recruited 160 social drinkers, aged 18-40 with no history of alcoholism, to attend two experiments. In the first, they were given glasses of beer or a non-alcoholic soft drink, served from a straight or a curved beer glass. Those drinking from a curved glass finished their drinks nearly twice as fast as the participants drinking the alcohol from a straight glass. That’s because it is harder to estimate amount of beer in the curdled glass. Straight one has much simple markers

In the second test, the participants were asked to look at images of the two types of glasses with varying volumes of liquid. There was a greater degree of error when it came to judging levels in the curved glasses.