Scent of a Woman—Or Man: Odors Influence Person Knowledge

Abstract

First impressions of social traits are regularly, rapidly, and readily determined from limited information about another individual. Relatively little is known about the way that olfactory information, particularly from scents that are not body odors, alters a first impression. Can the attributes of an odorant be conferred onto a person associated with that scent? To explore this, 101 participants were asked to form an impression of a hypothetical person based on the following stimuli: A gender-neutral silhouette, a list of six personal characteristics, and one of five odorants. Participants then rated the likelihood that the hypothetical person possessed each of 51 personality traits that were determined a priori as falling into six attribute categories. Participants also directly rated all odorants for the six categories and intensity. A T-test showed that ratings of the hypothetical person were less disparate from the odor that was presented during impression formation than from other odors. ANOVA revealed that the effects were heterogeneous, with odorants varying in their effectiveness in associating the hypothetical person with categories. The present data suggest that a hypothetical person can be imbued with the specific attributes of an odor and that some odors are better at contributing to impressions than others.