The effects of incidental scents in the evaluation of environmental goods: The role of congruity.

We investigated whether pleasant ambient scents influence hypothetical and real money contributions toward environmental goods. We hypothesized that they would increase such contributions more when they were congruent with the target goods than when they were incongruent or when no scent was released. The results supported this congruity hypothesis. We offer a mental accessibility account: Pleasant scents that are congruent with a target good make positive information about that good more accessible and thus promote prosocial behavior.
(© 2014 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)