Siemieniuk, A. , Sweklej, J. & Balas, R.
Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities
The aim of the study was to examine whether different types of odors could (un)consciously influence people’s attitudes towards homeless via evaluative conditioning (EC). The results of pre-test showed that the majority of people have a negative attitude to the target group. The explicit (questionnaire and direct scale) and implicit (priming task) attitude to homeless was measured. We checked if participants’ attitudes changed as a result of conditioning phase in which subtle odorants (different on affective congruence in explicit and implicit evaluation) were paired with affective pictures of homeless people. It was hypothesized that the affectively congruent odor would be able to increase both implicit and explicit attitudes towards homeless, but explicitly neutral and implicitly positive odor could increase the latent attitude toward homeless. In contrast, odor perceived as explicitly positive and implicitly as a neutral could increase explicit attitude. The results indicate successful conditioning of attitudes on implicit and explicit levels of measurement. Moreover, the EC effects were more pronounced when a lemon scent was used as unconditioned stimulus. This effect might be due to a common association of a lemon scent with cleanness and freshness.