Relationships between personality traits and attitudes toward the sense of smell

Abstract

Olfactory perception appears to be linked to personality traits. This study aimed to determine whether personality traits influence human attitudes toward sense of smell. Two-hundred participants’ attitudes toward their senses of smell and their personality traits were measured using two self-administered questionnaires: the Importance of Olfaction Questionnaire and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Demographics and olfactory function were also assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Gender-induced differences were present in attitudes toward sense of smell. Women participants were more dependent than men participants on olfactory cues for daily decision-making. In addition, as participants evaluated their own olfactory functions more positively, they relied more on olfactory information in everyday life. To determine a relationship between personality traits and attitudes toward sense of smell, Spearman partial correlation analyses were conducted, with controlling the factors that might influence attitudes with respect to sense of smell (i.e., gender and self-awareness of olfactory function) as covariates. Participants who scored high on the lie-scale (i.e., socially desirable and faking good), tended to use olfactory cues for daily decision-making related both to social communication and product purchase. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate a significant association between personality traits and attitudes toward sense of smell.

Consumer Attitudes Toward Texture and Other Food Attributes

“…In other words, consistent attention and appreciation are paid to flavor and aroma attributes across life span. This finding is in line with previous research demonstrating that people are consistently interested and attentive to the sense of smell as well as everyday odors across life span (Croy et al 2010;Seo et al 2013). In this study, males were found to be most likely to list flavor-related words, while females listed texture-related words at a higher proportion.…”

Genetic basis of olfactory cognition: extremely high level of DNA sequence polymorphism in promoter regions of the human olfactory receptor genes revealed using the 1000 Genomes Project dataset

“…Notable differences in perceived odor pleasantness were found in children with autism spectrum disorders: patients with this disorder perceived the smell of cinnamon and pineapple as significantly less pleasant compared to healthy controls, the same was true of cloves (Hrdlicka et al, 2011 ). Factors influencing human odor perception are extensively studied (Moshkin et al, 2011 ; Seo et al, 2011 , 2013 ; Greenberg et al, 2013 ). Recent studies demonstrate that genetic factors may contribute to inter-individual differences in odor perception (Keller et al, 2007 ; Weiss et al, 2011 ; Knaapila et al, 2012 ; Mainland et al, 2014 ).…”

Modulation of food consumption in healthy adults by exposure to coloured lighting

“…women are more attentive and dependent on olfactory cues for their daily decisions (Croy et al, 2010;Seo et al, 2011;Seo, Lee, & Cho, 2013), women are expected to more easily identify whether or not a meal is safe to eat, regardless of the lighting colour under which is presented. By contrast, men's sense of smell is relatively less sensitive leaving the men more dependent on visual cues, potentially rendering them more vulnerable to distorted visual cues such as blue lighting.…”

“…The suggestion being that, before beginning to consume food, ortho-nasally perceived odours could lead the participants to expect not only other sensory aspects, such as taste, texture, even acceptability, of the foods, but also whether or not the foods are safe to eat (Cho et al, 2015). This suggestion is based on previous findings that females outperform males in identifying and discriminating odours (Hummel et al, 2007), and that females are more attentive and dependent on olfactory cues for their daily decisions (Croy et al, 2010;Seo et al, 2011, Seo et al, 2013. Women, in comparison to men, are expected to more easily identify whether or not food is safe to eat, regardless of the lighting colour under which is presented.…”

“…If females are more sensitive to olfactory cues (Croy et al, 2010, Seo et al, 2011, Seo et al, 2013 it might be expected that the results of these other factors would also be affected. However, the results for females for these factors are consistent with their male counterparts, suggesting that female participants reacted to the coloured lighting stimulus in the same way as males, with the notable exception of the volume of food they consumed.…”