How reviewing your food online could reveal your inner self

Researchers analysed over 900,000 Yelp reviews, and the results gave an insight in people's likes and dislikes.They found constant references to drugs and sex, and references to highly emotional life events.Dan Jurafsky, the Stanford professor who led the study, said, 'Our goal was to examine online reviews not for what they tell us about restaurants, but rather for what they tell us about people, about the psychology of the person who wrote the review. 'We studied the meanings that are hidden in the way people use words and connotations.'The reviews covered restaurants in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Positive reviews of expensive restaurants tended to use metaphors of sex and sensual pleasure, such as 'orgasmic pastry' or 'seductively seared foie gras,' with longer words.However, while positive reviews of expensive restaurants were rife with sensual and sexy metaphors, the good food at cheap restaurants prompted references to drugs.The study in the  journal First Monday, used software to investigate almost 900,000 reviews of 6,548 restaurants – from fast food to luxury restaurants – on Yelp.com.The researchers analysed words and sentiments in the reviews, searching for words like 'fail,' 'disappoint,' 'bad,' 'antagonize' and 'heartbreakingly' in bad reviews.Positive reviews of cheap restaurants and foods often employed metaphors of drugs or addiction – 'these cupcakes are like crack.''We talk about food as an addiction when we're feeling guilty about what we're eating,' said Jurafsky.Negative reviews were frequently associated with the language of personal trauma and poor customer service, such as 'we waited 10 min. before we even got her attention to order.'Women were more likely than men to use drug metaphors to describe their attitudes toward food.Jurafsky said that prior research shows women are more likely to express cravings for foods like chocolate than men, and that they might be more comfortable expressing these feelings.The foods most likely to be described using drug metaphors were pizza, burgers, sweets and sushi.'Sense of self'.The team said they were stunned by how strongly the language of negative Yelp reviews resembled the language of people who have been traumatized by tragedies or the deaths of loved ones.'Bad reviews seem to be caused by bad customer service rather than just bad food or atmosphere.'The bottom line is that it's all about the personal interactions. 'When people are rude or mean to you, it goes straight to your sense of self.'The negative reviews function as a means of coping with service-related trauma, according to the study.'When you write a review on the web you're providing a window into your own psyche – and the vast amount of text on the web means that researchers have millions of pieces of data about people's mindsets, said Jurafsky.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az