title: Swiss identity smells like chocolate: Social identity shapes olfactory judgments.
abstract: There is extensive evidence that social identities can shape people's attitudes and behavior, but what about sensory judgments? We examined the possibility that social identity concerns may also shape the judgment of non-social properties-namely, olfactory judgment. In two experiments, we presented Swiss and non-Swiss participants with the odor of chocolate, for which Switzerland is world-famous, and a control odor (popcorn). Swiss participants primed with Swiss identity reported the odor of chocolate (but not popcorn) as more intense than non-Swiss participants (Experiments 1 and 2) and than Swiss participants primed with individual identity or not primed (Experiment 2). The self-reported intensity of chocolate smell tended to increase as identity accessibility increased-but only among Swiss participants (Experiment 1). These results suggest that identity priming can counter-act classic sensory habituation effects, allowing identity-relevant smells to maintain their intensity after repeated presentations. This suggests that social identity dynamically influences sensory judgment. We discuss the potential implications for models of social identity and chemosensory perception.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, and the Laboratory for the Study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.|The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, United States.|Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, United States.
authors.forename: Géraldine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Coppin
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, and the Laboratory for the Study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pool
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, and the Laboratory for the Study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Delplanque
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics &Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Bastiaan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Oud
authors.affiliation: Firmenich, SA, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Margot
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, and the Laboratory for the Study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sander
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, United States.
authors.forename: Jay J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Van Bavel
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055696:Olfactory Perception; D012933:Social Identification; D013334:Students; D013557:Switzerland; D055815:Young Adult