European researchers confirm that being “hangry” — hungry and angry — is a real phenomenon and that hunger really does lead to being easily frustrated.
To conduct this study, researchers examined 64 adults in central Europe, who tracked hunger levels and emotional states five times a day for approximately a month.
“Many of us are aware that being hungry can influence our emotions, but surprisingly little scientific research has focused on being ‘hangry’,’” says lead author Viren Swami, Professor of Social Psychology at ARU, in a media release.
Upon analysis, scientists found that when people are hungry, they tend to get angrier easily and feel more irritable. The outcome showed that being “hangry” was a common human experience, regardless of age, sex, BMI, diet and personality traits.
“Ours is the first study to examine being ‘hangry’ outside of a lab. By following people in their day-to-day lives, we found that hunger was related to levels of anger, irritability, and pleasure,” said Swami.
Researchers that labelling an emotion can help regulate it, so confirming the “hangry” emotional state, could reduce the likeliness of negative emotions as a result of feeling hungry.
