The smell of freshly baked bread doesn’t just make you hungry. It makes you kinder.
Researchers at France’s University of Southern Brittany found that people are more inclined to help others when they take a whiff of baked goods, the Independent reported.
The scientists, aiming to test whether smells affect behavior, rounded up a group of eight volunteers and asked half to stand outside a bakery. The other four hung out near the door of a clothing store.
The eight waited for shoppers to pass by and “accidentally” dropped little items, like tissues, gloves or handkerchiefs.
Some 77 percent of people who walked by the participants standing near the bakery picked up the dropped items, while only 52 percent picked up items near the clothing shop.
The researchers repeated the aromatic experiment 400 times to confirm their findings, which they say support their theory that smell can trigger one’s desire to help another.
The results “show that, in general, spontaneous help is offered more in areas where pleasant ambient smells are spread,” the researchers wrote in a study published in the Journal of Social Psychology. “This experiment confirms the role of ambient food odors on altruism.”
croberts@nydailynews.com
