Lyngo Lab

☕ Coffee Psychology: Black vs. Milk

Does how you take your coffee affect how others perceive you?

About two-thirds of Americans drink coffee, with most taking it black or with some form of milk and sugar. Given that coffee culture is as strong as the drink itself, our latest study pours over the psychology of how drinking black coffee vs. coffee with milk affects your image, specifically warmth and competence.

🔍 The Experiment:

We showed 400 research participants a photo of either black coffee or coffee with milk (randomly assigned), asking them to imagine that the cup of coffee belongs to a hypothetical coworker. Participants then rated how warm (i.e., nice) and competent (i.e., smart) the coworker seemed on a 1-7 survey scale. 87.9% of the people in our sample were coffee drinkers.

♨️ Results:

Surprisingly, whether the coffee was black or had milk made no significant difference in perceived competence (avg. 5.23 for black vs. 5.27 for milk; p = 0.769), nor perceived warmth (avg. 5.09 for black vs. 5.24 for milk; p = 0.253). Thus, one’s choice of coffee seems more a matter of taste.

🖥️ The Email Signature Myth

Email signatures have become ubiquitous. They’re often seen as a hallmark of professionalism. But what do recipients really think? We ran an experiment with 400 email readers and uncovered some surprising results.

📚 The Experiment

Participants read an email from a sales manager at a hypothetical company that either included or excluded his email signature (randomly assigned). They then rated the company on professionalism, competence, trustworthiness, and friendliness, using a 1-7 survey scale.

📊 Results

Contrary to popular belief, email signatures had minimal, if any, impact on customer perceptions. In fact, the email signature made the company appear slightly less friendly (5%), professional (4%), and trustworthy (5%), though these effects were small and not statistically significant.

🗝️ Conclusion

Email signatures might not be the image-boosting tool we thought. Although they’re prevalent and informative, their psychological impact on email readers seems limited. So, if you’re using an email signature solely to boost your image, you may want to reconsider.