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Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception

Odors are important disease cues, and disgust sensitivity to body odors reflects individual differences in disease avoidance. The body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) scale provides a rapid and valid assessment of individual differences. Nevertheless, little is known about how individual differences...

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Autores principales: Zakrzewska, Marta, Liuzza, Marco Tullio, Olofsson, Jonas K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10120931/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37083734
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284397
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author Zakrzewska, Marta
Liuzza, Marco Tullio
Olofsson, Jonas K.
author_facet Zakrzewska, Marta
Liuzza, Marco Tullio
Olofsson, Jonas K.
author_sort Zakrzewska, Marta
collection PubMed
description Odors are important disease cues, and disgust sensitivity to body odors reflects individual differences in disease avoidance. The body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) scale provides a rapid and valid assessment of individual differences. Nevertheless, little is known about how individual differences in BODS might correlate with overall odor perception or how it is related to other differences in emotional reactivity (e.g., affect intensity). We investigated how BODS relates to perceptual ratings of pleasant and unpleasant odors. We aggregated data from 4 experiments (total N = 190) that were conducted in our laboratory, and where valence and intensity ratings were collected. Unpleasant odors were body-like (e.g., sweat-like valeric acid), which may provide disease cues. The pleasant odors were, in contrast, often found in soap and cleaning products (e.g., lilac, lemon). Across experiments, we show that individuals with higher BODS levels perceived smells as more highly valenced overall: unpleasant smells were rated as more unpleasant, and pleasant smells were rated as more pleasant. These results suggest that body odor disgust sensitivity is associated with a broader pattern of affect intensity which causes stronger emotional responses to both negative and positive odors. In contrast, BODS levels were not associated with odor intensity perception. Furthermore, disgust sensitivity to odors coming from external sources (e.g., someone else’s sweat) was the best predictor of odor valence ratings. The effects were modest in size. The results validate the BODS scale as it is explicitly associated with experimental ratings of odor valence.
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spelling pubmed-101209312023-04-22 Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception Zakrzewska, Marta Liuzza, Marco Tullio Olofsson, Jonas K. PLoS One Research Article Odors are important disease cues, and disgust sensitivity to body odors reflects individual differences in disease avoidance. The body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) scale provides a rapid and valid assessment of individual differences. Nevertheless, little is known about how individual differences in BODS might correlate with overall odor perception or how it is related to other differences in emotional reactivity (e.g., affect intensity). We investigated how BODS relates to perceptual ratings of pleasant and unpleasant odors. We aggregated data from 4 experiments (total N = 190) that were conducted in our laboratory, and where valence and intensity ratings were collected. Unpleasant odors were body-like (e.g., sweat-like valeric acid), which may provide disease cues. The pleasant odors were, in contrast, often found in soap and cleaning products (e.g., lilac, lemon). Across experiments, we show that individuals with higher BODS levels perceived smells as more highly valenced overall: unpleasant smells were rated as more unpleasant, and pleasant smells were rated as more pleasant. These results suggest that body odor disgust sensitivity is associated with a broader pattern of affect intensity which causes stronger emotional responses to both negative and positive odors. In contrast, BODS levels were not associated with odor intensity perception. Furthermore, disgust sensitivity to odors coming from external sources (e.g., someone else’s sweat) was the best predictor of odor valence ratings. The effects were modest in size. The results validate the BODS scale as it is explicitly associated with experimental ratings of odor valence. Public Library of Science 2023-04-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10120931/ /pubmed/37083734 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284397 Text en © 2023 Zakrzewska et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Zakrzewska, Marta
Liuzza, Marco Tullio
Olofsson, Jonas K.
Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception
title Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception
title_full Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception
title_fullStr Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception
title_full_unstemmed Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception
title_short Body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is related to extreme odor valence perception
title_sort body odor disgust sensitivity (bods) is related to extreme odor valence perception
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10120931/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37083734
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284397
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