Psychology of Wine: Time Perspective
Do wine lovers share personality traits? How does our time perspective affect our relationship with wine?
Psychology & Wine
I was a psychology major in college, so I thought it would be interesting to explore how psychology and wine relate. There are several possible topics we could explore, such as the physiological, neurological and biological aspects of how wine affects our perception and behavior versus how our perception and biology affect how much we like a wine.Winemakers and marketing directors have already studied the latter to get us to like and buy their wines. Plus, there have already been several articles about how our different biology/DNA and chemical reactions affect our taste and how we can be tricked into liking wines according to our perception of things like the label and price.
We could also look at social and behavioral psychology in relation to wine. For example social psychology might ask how much our environment affects our enjoyment of wine, such as background music or peer pressure. Behaviorally, we have been trying to help people with problems with alcoholism while at the same time getting people to buy more of their alcoholic products. Because psychology analyzes all thoughts and behavior, all aspects of wine and the industry are possible subjects of psychology. However, I want to explore personality psychology for this post since I think it’s the least talked about.
Personality Psychology & Wine
I remember enjoying some wines with non-wine geek friends one evening, and when one friend heard I was really into wine, he said you must be an “F” (referring to one of the 4 spectrums of personality according to the famous Myers-Briggs personality test, which has 16 personality types). Although he misunderstood what the F (Feeling) personality actually is, which is more about emotions and relationships to others rather than feeling in terms of physical hedonism, it got me thinking about personality and wine since I’m actually more of a T (Thinking) personality than an F. Even in relation to wine, part of me loves wine because I like doing the analysis and logical evaluating of wine as much as the sensual pleasure. Hence, I have a whole blog for me to share what I think about wine. However, part of me also loves it because of the actual F aspect of me that likes bringing people together to bond in harmony, which wine can help do. Hence, I was able to draw a few conclusions about personality and wine just based on my self-analysis.
First of all, there are many different types of people who like wine, and they enjoy wine for different reasons. For example, a hedonistic personality might mostly care about the pleasure and could care less about the wine specifications and critiquing the wine. This could also affect the type of wine they like, which could be sexier, lush and ripe wines. In fact, some have suggested that the varieties highlighted in the film Sideways each represented the personality types of each character. At the same time, we can also have relatively equal different aspects of our personality that enjoy wine for many reasons. They are not mutually exclusive.
Lastly, we need to take all personality tests with a grain of salt similar to how we should use wine scores. A lot of them are simple psychology made for pop culture, and we as humans are more complex than that–just like wine. Our personalities can change over time–just like wine. They vary a lot according to the situation, culture, our experience and our biology. There’s no category that perfectly describes and predicts what a human would do–just like wine. At best, personality tests help us understand our strengths, weaknesses and tendencies in relation to others so that we can maximize our skills, work better with others and have more tolerance for others. At worst, we pigeonhole ourselves and others into being static stereotypes that we blindly stick to in ourselves or hate in others.
With those caveats in mind, I want to introduce a less famous personality test than the Myers-Briggs and suggest that many wine geeks/lovers represent a healthy personality according to this test.
Time Perspective Psychology
The psychology of “time perspective” was popularized by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo in his book The Time Paradox. Zimbardo developed a way to measure a person’s beliefs, values and preferences based on time-related experiences (in the past, present or future). You can take a test to determine your time perspective here.
In a nutshell, one can have a healthy or unhealthy perspective on the past, present or future. A past-positive person has a positive view of their past experiences while a past-negative focuses too much on traumatic experiences and regret. There’s a present-hedonistic perspective, which seeks immediate pleasure with a carpe diem attitude but sometimes by sacrificing planning and hard work or by taking more risks. Others have a present-fatalistic approach, in which they feel they have little control over their lives and that everything is just fate.Finally, there are future-oriented people who focus on planning for the future but it can sometimes be at the expense of the present. A subset of future oriented are transcendental future-oriented people, which focus on the after-life more than the current life.
Of course these types of time perspectives affect each other and can change over time. Moreover, not to sound too much like a present-fatalistic person, your perspective is highly influenced by many past and current experiences beyond your control. For instance, a child growing up in Gaza is going to have extreme trauma that is hard to overcome, making them past-negative. Additionally, an extremely violent present makes them more present-fatalistic, and that then makes them more likely to choose a transcendental future orientation because death is so near. I’ve also met extremely poor people in parts of Africa who took a present-hedonistic approach at risk of getting AIDS because they knew their future was likely short anyway, so they wanted to enjoy life while they could. Of course, there are people who overcome trauma and their current situation with a strong future orientation, but they are usually the exception.
However, learning to deal with trauma and improving one’s current situation can help people have a more balanced and healthy life that appreciates their current moment and looks to a better future. In fact, a balanced time perspective is considered the best, where one acknowledges the past and learns from both the good and the bad experiences, takes time to appreciate the present and plans for the future.
Time Perspective Psychology for Wine Lovers
Many wine lovers already have a balanced time perspective due to the nature of the hobby itself although there are certainly ways to have a negative time perspective with wine too.
Past Perspectives of Wine
A lot of wine geek enjoyment of wine is related to the past. We journal our wine notes and remember labels, vintages, etc. to help us learn from our past experiences to choose the best wine for the present. In a spiritual sense, wine rituals have been associated with remembrance and celebration of past people or events. Also, keeping and then later opening wines of special vintages are ways to help us remember how our life was then and how it has changed. Some of these special bottles, we keep as souvenirs or take pictures of to help us remember these experiences. Lastly, the wine, vineyard and producer themselves often have interesting histories of people, traditions and land that go into the production of the wine. Drinking these wines likewise moves us to celebrate or ponder that history. Moreover, aged wine itself is an evolving history in a bottle that changes over time. If you have several bottles, you can reflect on how it’s changed over the years. These are all positive views of the past and/or learning from the past to affect the future and present.
On the other hand, a negative-past perspective with wine would be drinking wine alone and getting drunk to forget the past and numb your sorrows. For example, alcoholism is often related to coping with childhood traumas, which were often due to parents drinking too much to deal with their inherited trauma and the cycle goes on. It could also mean never revisiting a wine you didn’t like at first when it actually could be something you’d like if you got to know it better.
Present Perspectives of Wine
Wine enthusiasm is at its core present-hedonistic. It enhances food, conversations and gatherings with people. It forces us to slow down and be in the moment. It looks, tastes, smells and feels great. Not many experiences engulf all our senses at once, which is important given that so much of our life is virtual these days. Coming back from a boring office job, a glass of wine with a meal can bring us back to earth. It can go down seamlessly as time flies while we’re having fun or it can make us take our time since it can also stimulate us intellectually as we reflect about what we’re tasting and the context/history it comes from. In addition, alcohol causes us to lower our inhibitions and we may more likely look to seize the day or act with some spontaneity. Opening a special, aged and/or rare bottle in itself is an act of carpe diem.
In addition, typical wine lovers are the ultimate bon vivants (good definition here). Bon vivants are positive present personalities because they don’t necessarily consume more than others or too much. They just savor moments more than others by slowing down and stretching out pleasure. They appreciate the little things, but not necessarily the most expensive or extraordinary things. Moreover, they are curious to try and appreciate new things. Variety is what makes it special. Lastly, they share their experiences with others. It’s not something they do alone to wallow in misery.
The negative side of the coin is two fold: present-fatalism and lack of past/future thinking. At the benign level, if you don’t learn from past experiences and if you don’t plan ahead, your wine experience may not fully be maximized or disappointing. For example, if you don’t have some prior knowledge or experience with wine and you don’t consider wine pairings, how old the wine is, how the wine was stored, whether it needs to be decanted or not, wine temperature, etc., then you may not taste the wine at its best, which can be disappointing, especially if it’s an expensive wine. Some past knowledge and future planning can help you get the most from your bottle.
A more serious consequence of not thinking about the future/past and having a fatalistic view of life is drinking so much to the point where you get sick in the short term or physically unhealthy in the long term. At its extreme, partying too much can cause you to lose your job, become an irresponsible parent, etc. Furthermore, you can become addicted, lose control and spend all your money. Then you act like you have no control over the consequences when you really do/did. This is often encouraged in “funny” memes or video clips by wine influencers about how wine lovers can’t stop drinking and buying wines. In reality, wine enthusiasm is mastering the art of bringing people together in joy through food and drink no matter the budget rather than worshiping the wine itself.
Future Perspectives of Wine
One of the most famous experiments related to the conflict between present-hedonism and future planning is the marshmallow experiment, where 4-6 year old kids were told not to eat a marshmallow for 15 minutes in order to get another one. Only 1 out of 3 are able to wait, and 100% of them turn out to be successful in life while the other 2 out of 3 who can’t wait are more likely to have problems in life and not be successful. Self-discipline in the present and forward thinking are the keys to success in all walks of life.
In relation to wine, lack of short-term planning can affect our current enjoyment of the wine as stated earlier. Moreover, wine collecting requires long-term planning as well since some wines can age 5-100 years and still improve. Therefore, it takes discipline to spend the money now and wait decades before opening a wine for a special occasion. However, when it’s opened, that present moment will be so much better. Plus, we save money in the long run as the value of the wine increases over time rather than buying the wine at its peak price 20 years later. Too often on social media I see people opening high-end wines upon their release that are best at 10-25 years of age. This can be from a lack of future perspective although it impresses people on Instagram in the immediate term for some dopamine hits from “likes.” Producers of high end wines like Bordeaux and Barolo have noticed the trend, and are intentionally making wines that are more approachable young than before as a consequence of people’s lack of patience these days.
Another common future oriented practice among wine geeks is spitting wine. Can you imagine tasting 30-100 dollar wines and not swallowing, but learning from past experiences tasting many wines at festivals or a day out in wine country can not only be bad for your short or long term health but it numbs the senses too much to enjoy all the wines and ambiance.
The negative aspect of future thinking in wine is when you are so obsessed with collecting for the future that you hoard and don’t share the pleasure with others in the immediate term. Then you die before you can enjoy the wines or the wines go bad before you open them.Billionaires hoarding and not sharing to point that others can’t get their basic needs, let alone some pleasure in life, is a growing issue globally and that mentality can trickle down (no pun intended) to wine collecting as it is used as a financial investment and status symbol more than for enjoyment and sharing with others.
Some billionaires I could argue practice a form of transcendental-future orientation, where they’re not so much focused on a religious heaven or hell afterlife, but are worried about their legacy and some imaginary future hundreds or thousands of years from now that is so hard to predict that it might as well be as faith-driven as heaven. This philosophy espoused by guys like Elon Musk, who puts a distant, possibly impossible future on Mars above life on Earth, is sometimes called Futurism (the Libertarian one, not the early 20th century Italian one) or Effective Altruism. Wine, which is naturally a cyclical time product, doesn’t really fit in this way of transcendental, extreme futurist thinking. Often, it’s just an excuse for stealing, exploiting and hoarding even though it disguises itself with charities and foundations focused on the distant future, which wine industries participate in. Therefore, this unhealthy future orientation is more an issue for large wine industries than wine consumers although our choices in which products we buy have current and future consequences. Hence, we have to consider fair trade, ethical, sustainable and ecologically friendly shopping for all products like wine.
The Healthy Wine Lover According to Time Perspective
In conclusion, a healthy wine lover is present with all their senses and intellect imbibing in wine and communing with others while learning from past experiences to maximize the present and future, which needs some amount of self-control, planning and work to drink wines at their peak. Wine is not meant to drown in your past sorrows, binge until you get sick or hoard for yourself as trophies of wealth. Healthy wine geeks drink in moderation and find other ways to exercise their bodies and minds. Lastly, a healthy wine lover must be an ethical consumer.
Although I’m sure I’ve met a few alcoholics, the vast majority of fellow wine geeks I’ve met practice most of the above balance of time perspectives with their wine. Maybe some need a bit more patience opening certain bottles while others wait too long to open bottles, but aging wine is always a crapshoot to a certain degree and depends on personal preferences. I think many of us could be in better shape and more doctors are saying all alcohol is bad for our health, but we’re still ignoring the social health benefits of wine binding us together.
What time perspective are the next generation of wine lovers?
Generally, younger generations think more and more about health along with sustainable, ecological and organic production when it comes to drinking, showing a tendency towards future thinking. That’s why so many practice dry January these days. They also care less about the traditional big name labels and regions, showing that they’re not into extreme future thinking and hoarding. At the same time, younger generations have grown up in a society of immediate pleasure and results with everything you need literally at your fingertips, and they’re economic situation doesn’t allow them to think too far in the future with wine or have the discipline for long term aging. So much of their experience is virtual now, getting dopamine highs from “likes” and clicks. While they don’t need all the pompous snobbery around wine, they need more ways to bind them to an in-person, non-virtual community, such as wine. Unfortunately, it’s often the older generations who are still hoarding and keeping them from having sublime wine experiences or the money to afford those experiences–Wine is often the most expensive drink option out there. Therefore, we need to give the younger generation a future to look forward to with their current basic needs secure in order to get more of them into wine and aging/collecting wine.
