If you’ve ever acted out of hanger — that is, anger from being hungry — you’re not alone.
In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists from Anglia Ruskin University and the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences have confirmed that being “hangry” is a real emotional state — not just an excuse to use if you snap at friends and co-workers.
As part of their study, which was published in the scientific journal PLOS One, the researchers tracked 64 Europeans with an app that monitored what they ate — or didn’t eat — and how they felt about it.
The scientists did in fact confirm that when people are peckish, they get peeved. Specifically, they feel stronger feelings of irritability and experience less pleasure.
Lead author of the study, Viren Swami of Anglia Ruskin University, noted, “Although our study doesn’t present ways to mitigate negative hunger-induced emotions, research suggests that being able to label an emotion can help people to regulate it, such as by recognizing that we feel angry simply because we are hungry.”
In other words, those Snickers ads are right: You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.