What Is The Scent of Happiness?

I think of Christmas when I smell mince-pies and Easter when I smell Hot Cross Buns. The scent of lilac takes me back to playing in my grandparents' shrubbery. "Wake up and smell the coffee!" captures the powerful association of smell with states of mind: a more notorious example is Colonel Kilgore's declaration that napalm "smells like victory".

Smells have many associations, some of which are cultural. Barbara Kingsolver frequently refers to the "smell of Africa" in The Poisonwood Bible and her characters contrast it with the olfactory sterility of the US. The same smells can evoke fond memories in some and nausea in others (I came across an example of this recently in the quirky site, I hate cilantro).

A selection of studies provides the following highlights about the intriguing links between olfaction, emotion, behaviour and memory:

• slot machine players in Las Vegas wagered 45% more in a pleasantly-scented room than players in a room without that scent addition [1].
• consumers in a scented room reported a significantly more positive impression of a pair of Nike shoes than consumers who examined an identical pair of shoes in an unscented room. A price survey revealed that one out of 10 consumers in the scented room would pay a purchase price of $10 more than consumers in the unscented room [2].
• a group of patients receiving MRI scans inhaled a vanilla aroma before the procedure: 63% reported reduced anxiety versus 5% of patients who received no intervention before the procedure [3].
• people could remember a scent and its related memory with 65% accuracy after a year. This finding was contrasted with visual recall, which returned 50% accuracy after only four months [4].

It would be interesting to see whether external stimuli such as smells could help people switch to a more resilient, resourceful state if they find themselves growing anxious or uneasy. Perhaps this might work in combination with biofeedback techniques. People might achieve a particular state of relaxation or resourcefulness that is confirmed by biofeedback results, and then have this associated with a particular smell. People might be able to reinforce this a few times and then use it independently in an appropriate situation.

Family Relationships Key to Happiness for Poor in Bangladesh

I was in Tower Hamlets yesterday, talking with some of the community health and well-being team (not the actual title but a reasonable description). We talked about the role of healthy breathing in relieving some of the distressing symptoms of chronic illnesses. We also discussed the importance of happiness, resilience and having a Happystance.

One of the most vigorously discussed topics was that the western concept of happiness seems to promote individualism and independence above social interdependence and group obligations. A research group recently published a working paper that reported eight out of ten people in Bangladesh describe themselves as happy: they say that their relationships with their loved ones is the key to their happiness.

Whilst achievement of individual goals and personal wealth remain the most significant contributors to happiness in Europe and North America, in Bangladesh and other parts of South and East Asia it seems to depend more on the quality of social relationships.

This finding could provide a partial explanation for the lack of success of development interventions in recent years, many of which are based on assumptions about the initiatives likely to bring the greatest benefit to individuals.

The researchers summarised the key characteristics about good relationships that were identified by the Bangladeshi people whom they interviewed. They found that:

• Older mothers valued being treated affectionately by sons and daughter-in-laws as much as receiving material support
• Participation and consultation in decision-making was singled out as an important indicator of a happy marriage
• For younger women the most crucial relationship was with their husband
• A good husband provides for his wife’s and their family’s needs, and is also respectful and acknowledges her competence
• Younger women focused on the quality of their personal relationship with members of their husband’s family, primarily their husband’s mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law
• All the groups, apart from older women, made connections between happiness and a desire to be respected and/or influential beyond the immediate confines of family relationships
• Older men valued the ability to participate in and influence the affairs of the community

Dr. McGregor commented on the report's findings:

Some of the older people we spoke to strongly valued close and harmonious relationships with family members, to the extent that they even enabled them to ignore physical hardship. Even though at times they don’t get enough food to eat, these people were still happy because they have good relationships with the rest of their family.

Now, I think that this working paper is a fascinating social description of happiness in the context of extreme poverty. However, I do not see Happystance as part of the hedonic or individualist view of happiness. I have repeatedly argued that Happystance is about resilience and that there is a lot of fine research that shows that we have greater physical and emotional resilience when we have rich social networks - otherwise known as friends and family. In good relationships, resilience and support flow back and forth over time. There is not always an equitable exchange between any one pair of friends, but over a set of relationships, these exchanges do seem to even out.