Attitudes toward Olfaction: A Cross-regional Study

Abstract

This study aimed to determine whether there are regional influences on attitudes toward olfaction. A total of 1082 participants aged 21-50 years from 4 different regions (Mexican, Korean, Czech, and German) were asked to rate general attitudes toward olfaction in everyday life. To examine affective attitudes to odors (i.e., pleasantness), participants were also asked to list 3 odors as being the most pleasant or unpleasant, respectively. Next, the mentioned odor names were attributed to 1 of 4 main categories: "Food & Drink," "Social relationship," "Nature," and "Civilization" and the distribution of these categories was compared across regions. Mexicans were significantly different to the other regions in their general attitudes toward olfaction. In addition, in all regions, in comparison with men, women indicated a higher interest in the sense of smell. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was present between individuals' self-rating of olfactory sensitivity and general attitudes toward olfaction. Finally, there were significant cross-regional differences in affective attitudes toward specific categories of odors. In conclusion, our findings support and extend the notion that regions affect attitudes toward the olfactory world.

Sex Differences in Olfactory Behavior in Namibian and Czech Children

“…Results were identical in patterns of statistical significance when non-parametric correlations were used, or when partial correlations controlling for age were used. A similar link was predicted (but not found) in a comparison of odor identification abilities of the highest and lowest quartile of COBEL scores in a smaller sample of French and Finnish children by Ferdenzi et al (2008b), but other researchers have also found positive relationships between olfactory sensitivity and self-reported attitudes towards olfaction (Seo et al 2011). …”

“…Ayabe-Kanamura et al 1998;Distel et al 1999;Pangborn et al 1988;Schleidt et al 1981), and in differential categorization of odors (Chrea et al 2004). Seo et al (2011) report several cross-regional differences in attitudes towards odors; for example, odor is more important in relation to emotions and memories, and is used more in day-to-day life, by Mexican respondents compared with Korean, Czech and German respondents. Similarly, Finnish children report more reactivity and attention to odors than French 4 children (Ferdenzi et al 2008b).…”

The smell of us – crowdsourcing human body odor evaluation

“…Women typically outperform men in odor perception and recognition tasks (Doty, 1986;Koelega, 1994). Women also show a greater interest in olfaction across cultures (Seo et al, 2011) and have a higher neuron density in the olfactory bulb (Oliveira-Pinto et al, 2014), which may contribute to a greater odor sensitivity. Gender-based differences have been shown in the perceived pleasantness of many odorants (Keller et al, 2012) including other body odors (Doty, Ford, Preti, & Huggins, 1975), but it is unknown to what extent these differences are biological or cultural.…”

A review of motivational models for improving hand hygiene among an increasingly diverse food service workforce

“…Additionally, odor stimulus has been shown to produce larger, more startled emotional responses than visual or auditory presentations (Adolph & Pause, 2012;Herz, 2004). Sensitivity to disgusting or irritating odor associations are common in at least seven geographic areas (Ferdenzi et al, 2013), especially Hispanics who appear to be more attentive to odors than other cultural populations (Seo et al, 2011). According to Stevenson (2010), odor-related feelings, such as disgust, may play an evolutionary role in humans to avoid environmental hazards such as food that if consumed would be harmful.…”