Hangry phenomenon offers plenty of food for thought

here’s actually a word for it when you’re both hungry and angry – they call it ‘hangry’ and it’s even in the Oxford English Dictionary, because it’s an accepted phenomenon that you’re more likely to growl at people when your tummy is growling at you.

Which is why the more perilous time for rows is just before mealtimes; anger in the office immediately before lunch, domestic difficulties just before dinner. And anyway, the converse of that is you’re too tired to fight on a full stomach.

We’ve always known that we’re more irritable when we’re starving, but scientists wanted to quantify exactly how, why and when this happens – so they found 200 students who were alternatively prepared to fast or eat before completing a tedious computer exercise.

Now there are few things in life that can cause you to flip the switch quite as spontaneously as watching your screen fade to black – and that was the fate that befell the students just before the assignment was complete.

Just in case they were the sanguine sort, the examiner then blamed them for the screen freeze to see what sort of angry response that might trigger.

Those who’d been fed and watered mightn’t have quite taken it in their stride, but they weren’t half as angry as the hungry hounds who thought the examiner was a ‘terrible human being’ – or words to that effect.

In all honesty, no matter what platter I’d partaken of earlier, if a guy accused me of breaking my computer at a time when all my work was on screen, I’d blow my top.

We can only presume that the guinea pigs in this University of North Carolina study had enjoyed a beverage or two with their pre-exam meal and therefore couldn’t really have cared less if a bomb had hit the building and blown their computers to kingdom come.

Snickers, according to the manufacturer, solves this problem every time – even Mr Bean turns into a samurai warrior after just one bite – and clearly a sugar boost is the short-circuit to temporary happiness.

But as one friendly psychologists at the University of North Carolina pointed out, there’s a fine line between wanting a bite to eat and wanting to bite someone’s head off.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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