The latest research confirms another magical effect of coffee, which is interesting and practical!

[Study shows that coffee helps teamwork] A recent study shows that good teamwork starts with a cup of coffee per person. Researchers found that if people drank caffeinated coffee beforehand, they would give more positive comments on their team's work performance and their own contributions. Another study showed that among people who drank caffeinated coffee, people talked more and paid more attention to the topic than those who drank decaffeinated coffee.

Coffee seems to work its magic on teams, making people more alert, said the study's lead author, Dr. Carolyn Miller, a marketing major at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business. "We found that increased alertness was a positive factor in team performance. Not surprisingly, people who drank caffeinated coffee tended to be more alert," he said in the study published online in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

While many studies have looked at the effects of caffeine on individual performance, this is the first to examine the effects of caffeine on teams. The first study involved 72 university students who self-identified as coffee drinkers. Before the experiment, they were told not to drink coffee.

Half of them first participated in a coffee tasting task, and they were divided into five groups. After drinking a cup of coffee and rating its taste, they were asked to do a 30-minute refresher task to give the caffeine a chance to take effect, while the other half of the participants tasted the coffee at the end of the experiment.

Each group then read and discussed a controversial topic, the Occupy movement, a liberal movement that highlights social and economic inequality. After a 15-minute discussion, group members evaluated themselves and other group members. Results showed that those who drank coffee before the discussion rated themselves and their team members more positively than those who drank coffee after the discussion.

The second study was similar, except all 61 students drank coffee at the start of the study. However, half drank caffeinated coffee, and the others drank caffeinated beer. Those who drank caffeinated coffee rated themselves and their peers more positively than those who drank decaffeinated coffee. All participants rated how alert they were at the end of the study, and those who drank caffeinated coffee rated themselves as more alert than the others. A key finding was that people who rated themselves as more alert, whether they drank caffeinated coffee or not, tended to give themselves and their peers higher ratings.

This suggests that interventions that increase vigilance, such as exercise, may also produce similar results, which is a topic for future research that the authors propose in their paper. "We suspect that when people are more vigilant, they see themselves and other group members contributing more, which gives them a more positive attitude."

But caffeine does more than just increase good feelings. In a second study, the researchers analyzed group discussions, rating how much each group member talked about and how much they kept talking about. The results showed that people tended to talk more after drinking coffee, but they also tended to talk about more topics. "They talked about more relevant things after drinking caffeinated coffee," said Dr.

One might think that if people talked more about a controversial topic like the Occupy movement it might cause friction in the group. But the study showed the opposite. People who drank caffeinated coffee were more willing to work with their group again than those who drank decaffeinated coffee. They talked more, agreed or disagreed, and still wanted to work with their group members again. Coffee didn't seem to make group discussions too uncomfortable and unpleasant. (Lily 208756)