Abstract
The degree of attention individuals pay to olfactory cues (called odor awareness) influences the role of odors in everyday life. Particularly, odors produced by the human body (i.e., social odors) are able to carry a wide variety of information and to elicit a broad spectrum of emotional reactions, making them essential in interpersonal relationships. Hence, despite the assessment of awareness toward social odors is crucial, a proper tool is still lacking. Here, we designed and initially validated the Social Odor Scale (SOS), a 12-item scale designed to measure the individual differences in awareness towards different social odors. In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA; KMO test: MSA = 0.78; Bartlett’s test: χ2(78) = 631.34, p < 0.001; Chi-squared test: χ2(42) = 71.84, p = 0.003) suggests that the three factors structure was the model that best fit with the Italian version of the scale. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supports a second-order model with one higher-order factor representing social odor awareness in general and three lower-order factors representing familiar, romantic partner, and stranger social odors. The final version of the scale presented a good fit (RMSEA = 0.012, SRMR = 0.069, CFI = 0.998, TLI = 0.997). In Study 2, CFA was performed in the German version of the scale confirming the validity of scale structure. Study 3 and 4 revealed that SOS total score and its subscales were positively correlated with other validated olfactory scales, but not with olfactory abilities. Moreover, SOS was found to be related to the gender of the participants: women reported to be more aware to social odors and, specifically, to familiar social odors than men. Overall, the results indicated that SOS is a valid and reliable instrument to assess awareness toward social odors in everyday life.
Highlights
The prominent role of odors in people’s life is well known [1], not all humans pay attention to odors in the environment in the same way [2]
Based on the eigenvalues and the scree plot, three possible models were found: with 3, 4, or 5 factors. These three models were explored with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) which were conducted using a minimum residual estimation method and applying an Oblimin rotation
The first factor was specific for the romantic partner body odor, the second for the familiar body odor, the fourth for the stranger body odor, whereas the third factor retained items that were not specific for the own body odor
Summary
The prominent role of odors in people’s life is well known [1], not all humans pay attention to odors in the environment in the same way [2]. Each individual presents a typical body odor that, as for physical appearance, reflects personal stable characteristics or transient events (e.g., personality, sex, age, health, and even transient emotional states; [6, 7]). These odors are perceived by other people and affect their reaction: they become social odors [8, 9]. Study 1 was designed to investigate the factor structure of the Italian version of the scale through the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and to test the validity of the proposed model through the confirmatory factor analyses (CFA)
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