EPA-1213 – Preference of essential oil as an indicator of individual psychological characteristics

Abstract

It is known that physiological characteristics of an individual arecorrelated with the formation of a person's emotional background when perceiving external sensory stimuli, as indicated by the close relationshipbetween olfactory and emotiogenicbrain structures. Individual ranking of pleasant and unpleasant odors can be described interms of typological and personality traits, and is associated with persistentpsychological characteristics. We aimed to determine the relationship between preference of essential oil andpsychological individual characteristics. 110healthy volunteers (women and men) -students aged 18 to 23 years with no documented manifestations of rhinalpathologies participated in this study. We used the following tests: ‘Personality differential’, ‘Personality and typological inventory’ by L.N. Sobchik, WAM (Wellbeing, Activity, Mood), and State Anxiety Inventory byC. Spielberger, Y. Hanin. We selected essential oils ofmint, lavender, lemon, rose, common wormwood, pine, ylang-ylang, and sandalwood. Rejection of certain essential oils may be caused by ostensibly real negative personal characteristics, which s/he seeksto get rid of. Amongthose with normal level of anxiety the description of the most pleasant odorwas similar to the description of the real ego. Among those with an anxious accentuation and anxious psychopathythe description of the most pleasant odor and the dynamic ego were similar. Thus, a person consciously hands over a choiceof odor to the personalcharacteristics s/he believes canenhance or rouse positive feelings: subjectively pleasantodors reduced the level of StateAnxiety, improved Wellbeing and Mood, and increased activity.