Jonas Olofsson
Appearances
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
We hypothesized that people who are very disgusted by body order, that they would also have this kind of authoritarian disposition. And that's what we've found.
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
The sense of smell is among the senses that most people would lose if they had to lose one. And a lot of people would actually lose their sense of smell rather than losing their phones or their pinky toe, which I think would be really a mistake because the sense of smell is so important to us.
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
When we enjoy food, for example, most of that flavor comes from smells that are released in the mouth and travel through our throat and up our to the nasal cavity. We think of it as a taste, but it's really smell. So if you try to pinch your nose next time you have a meal, you wouldn't want to do that ever again, because the food experience would be quite terrible.
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
And you see also that people who lose their sense of smells, they are more vulnerable to depression. And that tells you something about how the sense of smell kind of connects us with the world around us. So I think that's like a more existential side of the sense of smell that people don't really realise.
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
Yeah, so there's a longstanding notion in social psychology that kind of authoritarianism is essentially a way to avoid disease, to avoid being infected. So you want to keep your distance. You want society to be very rigid and different groups of people don't interact with each other so much. You have like a close knitted circle. You prioritize family and your close friends and you...
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
You don't want a lot of foreigners coming to your country, etc. So there's a cluster of values that can be and has been linked to this notion of contagion. And the sense of smell is a way for us to avoid things that can make us sick. And that's why the sense of smell is linked to disgust so much. When we smell something that we don't like, we...
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
We are disgusted by it and we avoid it very strongly. So we hypothesize that people who are very disgusted by body order, that they would also have this kind of authoritarian disposition. And that's what we've found now in a number of different studies. And this correlation is found all over the world, actually. So we don't.
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
We've done a global study on this effect and found that it is true basically everywhere you go.
Global News Podcast
First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
I love the smells of my family members. Those are hard to beat, obviously. But I love coffee smell, coffee and pastries. Cinnamon is popular in Sweden and the cardamom.