Confidence, energy, sex
appeal: That pretty bottle of perfume holds more than a pleasant-smelling
liquid. It may be the best performance enhancer you’ve tried.
“Your Honor, my perfume made me do it.”
While this defense might not hold up in
court, it could certainly pass muster with a jury of scent scientists. Their
research suggests that the fragrance on your wrist (or wafting through the air)
affects far more than your mood: it can actually change the way you behave. In
one study, customers were willing to shell out more money for sneakers in a
store with a floral scent that in one without. (Note to self: Don’t wear a
tuberose-heavy fragrance within a mile of the mall.) According to another, a
pleasing aroma enhanced people’s performance on word puzzles.
And a whiff of lemon just might summon
your inner neat freak: After being exposed to a citrus scent, people eating
biscuits were more likely to keep their table clean than people who weren’t
exposed to odor; the researchers credited an association between the smell of
cleaner and cleaning behaviour.
“Scent affects us all the time, even if
we’re not aware of it,” explains neurologist Alan Hirsch,M.D., of the Smell
& Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, who conducted the
sneakers study. “It’s a quick way to induce a change in somebody’s mood, state,
or actions. In a positive frame of mind, you tend to view everything less
critically.” That’s why, for instance, the lobbies of Ritz-Carlton hotels have
“an intoxicating rose scent-it makes you want to come back,” says Stephen
Warrenburg, a researcher at International Flavors & Fragrances.
How it all works? Our sense of smell
takes an express route straight to the limbic system of the brain-the part that
controls emotion, memory, and behaviour. Certain scents produce an unconscious
conditioned response based on memories (chocolate-chip cookies remind you of
Mom, so their aroma probably makes you feel happy and secure); others elicit a
purely physical change, stimulating the trigeminal nerves in the nose (the ones
that make you sneeze when you smell pepper). And some are powerful enough to
work in both ways.
The flip side of this scentual
programming: Armed with the right information, you can manipulate your feelings
and actions (and those of others!) to your advantage. So before you spritz
another cent, ask yourself what you want it to do for you-then follow our
advice for influencing these situations in your favour.
