Sydney: The next time you want someone to agree with your views, just put forth your ideas before him/her, over a cup of coffee, as a new research has revealed that caffeine works best to get messages through in the morning.
Researchers have discovered that a morning dose of caffeine can work wonders to drive home a persuasive message.
UQ researcher Pearl Martin, who is looking into the effects of caffeine, gave the equivalent of two cups of coffee to students who agreed with voluntary euthanasia. After waiting 40 minutes to let the caffeine enter the bloodstream, the undergraduates were presented with strong arguments against euthanasia.
Most of students in the study were persuaded to reverse their views on the subject after they were given this new information.
Dr Martin said the caffeine helped the students concentrate more effectively on persuasive messages.
"If the argument is strong, forceful and convincing, then people are more likely to see the strength of the argument and be persuaded by it," she said.
However, plying people with litres of coffee before a conference or presentation could have the reverse effect.
People overstimulated by the popular psychoactive drug are less likely to focus on messages and more likely to focus on peripheral issues, such as the attractiveness of the person pouring the coffee, according to the study's co-author, Blake McKimmie of the Queensland University of Technology
The study, due to be published in the European Journal of Social Psychology early next month, is one of the first to look at the way caffeine influences people's attention to persuasive messages.
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