A Whiff of Reality

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to investigate the potential effects of pleasant fragrances on task performance. Participants performed a word formation (anagrams) task under moderate or low stress and in the presence or absence of two different fragrances previously rated as pleasant by a large group of judges. In addition, some participants received a small gift at the start of the experimental session. Results indicated that both exposure to pleasant fragrances and receipt of a small gift significantly increased performance on the anagrams task; moreover, this was true under conditions of moderate as well as low stress. In addition, both exposure to pleasant fragrances and receipt of a small gift increased participants' willingness to help the experimenter by serving as uncompensated volunteers. These results are consistent with an interpretation suggesting that pleasant fragrances can enhance task performance by serving as a source of environmentally generated positive affect.

Influence of room fragrance on attention, anxiety and mood

“…Together with survey results of several women's magazines indicating that rose odour is often disliked by men and preferred by the majority of women, this might explain the unfavourable results in rose‐exposed men. Support comes from the work of Baron and colleagues and Hirsch stating that the induction of a positive mood (using positively valenced odours) may have a facilitative effect on cognition and may enhance both physical and psychological well‐being. The emergence of the different response towards fragrances is in line with past research that has shown that men and women have different scent preferences .…”

From blindsight to blindsmell: a mini review

“…While the world of commerce has long realised that odours can surreptitiously affect behaviour (e.g., [ 13 ]), academic acceptance of this idea has been slower. The basic claim here is that odours can affect various psychological/physiological processes without someone knowing that this is occurring.…”

Can Ambient Scent Enhance the Nightlife Experience?

“…All these pleasant scents were expected to increase the revenue from drinks, increase the number of visitors, improve the mood of the visitors, and improve their evaluations of the club environment compared to a no-scent control condition. Possibly, improved visitors’ mood might (partly) account for the effects found on the evaluation of the environment (e.g., Baron and Thomley 1994; Gulas and Bloch 1995). Therefore, mediation analyses (Baron and Kenny 1986) were performed in order to test whether mood works as a mediator for the positive effect of pleasant scents on the evaluation of the environment.…”