The sweet smell of failure
If there's a strong smell in the air when you miss that golfing shot or fail an exam, the next time you catch the same scent you could fail again, according to researchers in Philadelphia.
Psychologist Rachel Herz team leader at the Monell Chemical Senses Center asked volunteer five-year olds to find their way out of a maze while the sweet smell of flowers was being wafted across the maze - unknown to the volunteers.
The trouble was, this was an impossible maze and all the children were frustrated in their efforts to find their way out, without adult help, of course.
The next step was to give the kids another cognitive test, this time one they could solve. They were split into two groups in two different rooms. One room had the same perfumed aroma wafting around. The other was odour free.
Those who caught a whiff of flowers usually failed the second test while the scentless crowd successfully solved it. Herz and her team are convinced of the power of odour molecules in affecting our moods, behaviour and performance on the basis of this and other related experiments. Perhaps if they could isolate the sweet smell of success they could can and sell it...
Developmental Psychology, 1999, 35, 102
