The Italian Job
Come si dice, “I like the way my partner’s armpits smell”?
One thing you learn in the fragrance business is that some people are super tuned-in to smell while others couldn’t care less about it. All these folks might agree that a given scent is nasty, but it’s a big deal to the former and a matter of indifference to the latter.
If awareness of smells is a stable trait that differs among people, we should be able to measure it. And indeed there have been many attempts to do so. There’s the Affective Impact of Odor scale (1999), the Odor Awareness Scale (2008), the Individual Significance of Olfaction questionnaire (2010), and the Body Odor Disgust Scale (2017) among others.
A new entry in the field comes from Italy: a group of seven psychologists at the University of Padua along with a bonus Austrian from Graz. They felt there was a need for a questionnaire specifically designed to measure individual differences in awareness of what they politely call “social odors,” but which I’ll call BO.
To get the ball rolling, the research group assembled 30 statements (e.g., “I can recognize people by their odor”) and had people rate each on a 5-point scale (from “I totally disagree” to “I totally agree”). They gave the survey online to 343 Italian panelists. Based on factor analysis of the results, they whittled the survey down to 12 statements that were specific, non-overlapping, and which targeted subscales such as “romantic partner odor.” They called the result the Social Odor Scale.
Next, they translated the SOS into German and gave it to 359 people in Austria. The overall results and subscales compared nicely to the Italian version. Alles gut!
With the new questionnaire in hand, they wanted to see whether social odor awareness is predicted by olfactory abilities. So they gave the SOS to 57 people who had already taken the Sniffin’ Sticks smell test which measures odor detection threshold, odor discrimination, and odor identification. Comparing the results, the team found a clear answer: SOS and odor skillz aren’t really related.
Finally, the research group found that SOS scores correlate moderately well with other psychometric smell scales, including the Affective Importance of Odor scale, the Olfactory Awareness Scale, and the Vividness of Olfactory Imagery Questionnaire (co-authored by yours truly).
The correlation between the SOS and VOIQ was an underwhelming +0.36. But then, why would we expect the ability to visualize smelly scenarios (VOIQ) to closely track how tuned-in a person is to body odors (SOS)?
I have other issues with the design of the SOS. Most of its 12 items are on the money (e.g., “I can recognize people by their body odor”), but one is badly under-specified: “Odors can evoke in me the memory of people I have not seen for a long time.” Suppose you totally agree with that statement because the aroma of tomato sauce reminds you of your Italian grandmother. What has that got to do with BO?
Another issue is that several items are phrased only in a positive mode, leaving the negative versions unexplored. For example, “I can be attracted to someone for their body odor” isn’t balanced with “I can be disgusted by someone because of their body odor.” (One could fail to be attracted by BO but still be repulsed by it, and the current SOS won’t pick that up.)
Most importantly, I think the SOS is too generic. With the exception of item 6 (“I like the way my partner’s armpits smell”), it doesn’t mention specific sources of BO. What about bad breath? Farting? Failure to wipe adequately? We’d get a better picture if more BO sources were spelled out, including use of perfume, cologne, shampoo, or body spray.
Overall I’d give Dal Bò et al. an A for effort but a B- for content.
And to answer the question posed in the subtitle, repeat after me: “Mi piace il modo in cui le ascelle del mio partner odorano.”
Elisa Dal Bò, Claudio Gentili, Andrea Spoto, Giovanni Bruno, Andrea Castellani, Carmen Tripodi, Florian Fischmeister, & Cinzia Cecchetto. (2021). The social odor scale: Development and initial validation of a new scale for the assessment of social odor awareness. PloS ONE, 16:e0260587.
I would add to your list: feet odor, scalp smell and hand smell ( some people smoke; some cut onions and garlic all day...), and why not - smell of clothes they wear (some people never wash them; some use disgusting fruity musky softeners)