How You Eat a Slice of Pizza Reveals a Lot About Your Personality
We all know there’s more than one way to eat a slice of pizza. Some people actually use utensils, some go for the crust first, some of us are advocates for folding, and others just bite in without contemplating the many possibilities of pizza eating.
Patti Wood, a renowned body language and human behavior expert who teaches at Emory University, recently shared her insight with Redbook Magazine and the world at large on just how many ways there are to attack a deliciously cheesy, melty slice (there are exactly four, if you’re wondering). And she explained what those methods reveal about the eaters’ personalities.
Wood is often consulted by media and tabloids to weigh in on celebrity body language, determining from Beyoncé's or Jay Z’s stance and expressions whether they're on the brink of divorce, for example. But apparently her same method can just as easily be applied to the average person and his or her favorite way to chow down on a cheap slice of pizza.
Wood’s four approaches to pizza eating correspond to four personality types: drivers, influencers, supporters and careful correctors. Each personality type (and its corresponding pizza-eating tactic) is laid out below. Where do you fall on Wood’s pizza-and-personality scale?
Drivers: Drivers, ostensibly those of us who fold our favorite slice before digging in, are motivated risk-taking individuals and adventurous multitaskers. Drivers eat their pizza in the most-efficient way possible (but may also be unaware of savoring the smaller pleasures in life).
Influencers: They’re the ones who munch on the crust before devouring the more delicious part of the pizza. People who eat pizza this way, according to Wood’s study, like to be the center of attention. They talk loudly and often, and they may cause a little drama in order to catch the eyes and ears of everyone in the room.
Supporters: The most polite of the bunch, supporters apparently have more manners than the rest of us, and they prefer to eat pizza with a knife and fork. But really? Who are these people who eat the world’s favorite finger food with cutlery? According to Wood’s personality assessment, these people do exist, and they actually make great party hosts because they’re major people-pleasers. They’re also “loyal, reliable and resilient,” so it sounds like they’d actually make pretty good friends — if you can ever get over the fact that they really eat pizza with a knife and fork.
Careful Correctors: Counterintuitively, these folks just jump right in and bite into their pizza without a second thought. According to Wood, though, these people are perfectionists; they know their method of pizza eating works just fine, and they don’t want to mess with a good thing.