Effects of Fragrance on Emotions: Moods and Physiology

Smelling a delightful aroma can be a very pleasurable experience, but can it be measured scientifically? Over the past 20 years International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (IFF) has been working to refine its methods of measuring both the subjective and physiological effects of aromas and fragrances on emotions. We have developed a selfreport method called Mood Mapping™ that reliably measures the mood associations of aromas, whether simple ingredients or finished fragrances in consumer products (Warrenburg, 2002). Mood Mapping provides a choice of eight mood categories to panelists, who are asked to smell the aroma of a sample and ‘pick the mood category that best matches the aroma of the sample’. We found that this straightforward voting technique results in clearer and more reliable differentiation among aromas than do techniques that require respondents to rate each mood for each sample being evaluated. The resulting mood profiles of each aroma can be mapped by multidimensional scaling or principal component analysis. Figure 1 displays the voting results for clementine, a citrus aroma, versus vanilla. Both are equally pleasant, but the former is more stimulating and the latter more relaxing. The Mood Map reflects these differences by their positions in the Arousal (Y) dimension, yet also shows their hedonic similarity on the Positive/Negative (X) dimension. The other points are other aromas that evoke different patterns of the eight moods. Measurement of moods in this way can be conducted in combination with consumer research of fragranced (or flavored) products. When these results are mapped we have found that the four positive moods identify the major dimensions of the map. Thus, positive consumer reactions tend to reflect the major mood dimensions of happiness, stimulation, relaxation and sensuality that underlie a wide variety of specific attributes identified as applying to such products. Furthermore, we have found that this is true in populations tested around the world. We have built a database for our creative staff, called the Consumer Fragrance Thesaurus, that catalogs the moods, attributes, colors and other qualities of fragrances tested in different areas of the world (Warrenburg, 1999). One of our principal interests has been to discover whether fragrance can be used as a stress-relief agent in a consumer product. Stress is a global affliction, a fact that is not only acknowledged anec