Indian stock market starts at 9:15 am. Well past the usual breakfast time for many. Yes – this post is about food 🙂

Behavioral science has been blessed with many stalwarts. Roy Baumeister is one of them. As a behavioral scientist, he wanted to ascertain whether remaining hungry and / or craving for food (though not starving) impacted a human being intellectual performance. As it goes with many researchers, he conducted an experiment.

Details of the Experiment

Two batches of 30 students each, of equal IQ and academic performance were selected. They were locked up in separate rooms for 60 minutes and given an exercise to master in mathematics. In both rooms were ovens, which were halfway into baking cakes and cookies. B

Batch # 1 was instructed to stay away from the oven even after it finished baking and was banned from consuming a single cake/cookie. Batch # 2 was instructed to wait for the oven to cool off before enjoying the confectionery.

Result of the experiment

After the designated 60 min timeframe, Roy Baumeister found batch # 1 floundering in their mathematical questions, whereas batch # 2 breezed through it.

Upon interviewing them, students of batch # 1 admitted that majority of their mental energy was spent in fighting their salivating mouths, the aroma of the cakes & cookies and deep emotional craving for the goodies. This was a great revelation.

But, the experiment did not end there. The roles were reversed and batch # 2 was forbidden from savoring the cakes & cookies and their performance went south as well. This is a very critical piece of information that can be used by traders as it can affect our logical decision making capabilities.

Final thoughts

Next time you decide to skip breakfast because you’re in a rush, please do remember this experiment and how our mothers force-fed us before packing us off to school. One might call that as ‘love and affection’ but indirectly, it served us well.

Moral of the experiment – Never start your trading day with an hungry stomach ?

Roy Baumeister Profile

https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/baumeisterr/baumeister.dp.php

Happy trading !!