The Implicit Association between Odors and Illness

Abstract

Some individuals ascribe health symptoms to odor exposures, even when none would be expected based on toxicological dose-effect relationships. In these situations, symptoms are believed to have been mediated by beliefs regarding the potential health effects from odorants, which implies a controlled type of information processing. From an evolutionary perspective, such a form of processing may hardly be the only route. The aim of the present study was to explore the viability of a fast and implicit route, by investigating automatic odor-related associations in the context of health. An Implicit Association Test assessing association strengths between the concept odor and the concepts healthy and sick was conducted. Three experiments (N=66, N=64, and N=64) showed a significantly stronger association between the concepts odor and sick than between odor and healthy. These results did not match explicit associations and provide evidence for a fast and automatic route of processing that may complement consciously controlled processes. A dual-processing theory of olfactory information is proposed leading to new hypotheses regarding the development and maintenance of odor-induced health symptoms.

An Overprotective Nose? Implicit Bias Is Positively Related to Individual Differences in Body Odor Disgust Sensitivity

“…Of particular interest was to investigate if people with higher BODS levels display a steeper increase in their implicit bias when exposed to an unpleasant bodylike odor as compared to a neutral or pleasant odor. As we assume that prejudice can be partially explained by diseaseavoidance concerns, we predicted that our hypothesized effects would be stronger when using an alternative version of the IAT with health/illness related words (see Bulsing et al, 2009). Additionally, we hypothesized that authoritarianism mediates the relationship between the BODS and implicit bias, thus repeating the pattern of relationship from Liuzza et al (2018).…”

Gaseous Emissions from Wastewater Facilities

“…Based on the FIDOL approach the author proposed the introduction of the following regulatory odor limit: "Facilities that are identified as sources of potentially offensive odors shall ensure that the 10-min average concentration of odor resulting from all sources at the facility and determined in accordance with accepted procedures, shall be less than 1 odor unit 99.5% of the time at the most impacted sensitive receptor." Bulsing et al (2009) conducted Implicit Association Tests on groups of individuals to assess the association strength between the concept odor and the concepts healthy and sick. The tests showed a significantly stronger association between the concepts odor and sick than between odor and healthy.…”

Chemoreception Scientists Gather under the Florida Sun: The 31st Annual Association for Chemoreception Sciences Meeting

“…One area of application of the general theory that top‐down influences shape odor perception is related to the phenomenon than people may attribute illness to environmental odors. Monique Smeets (Utrecht University) and Patricia Bulsing (Unilever) showed how an odor can become associated with adverse health effects via classical conditioning and how perception of the odor changes as a result 19 . CNS responses to sensory stimulation (i.e., event‐related potentials (ERPs)) can be recorded electrophysiologically through electrodes placed on the scalp.…”

“…Monique Smeets (Utrecht University) and Patricia Bulsing (Unilever) showed how an odor can become associated with adverse health effects via classical conditioning and how perception of the odor changes as a result. 19 CNS responses to sensory stimulation (i.e., event-related potentials (ERPs)) can be recorded electrophysiologically through electrodes placed on the scalp. Early, short-latency components in ERPs recorded while smelling the odor were significantly affected by classical conditioning of that odor to trigeminal pain, suggesting that odors are perceived differently when illness is expected to follow.…”