Madzharov and her colleagues have determined that the scent of coffee has a powerful effect on humans – employers should probably invest in coffee makers that generate lots of coffee aromas and position those coffee makers in break areas throughout their offices. The Madzharov-lead team explored “the effect of an ambient coffee-like scent (versus no scent) on expectations regarding performance on an analytical reasoning task as well as on actual performance…people in a coffee-scented (versus unscented) environment perform better on an analytical reasoning task due to heightened performance expectations…[and] people expect that being in a coffee-scented environment will increase their performance because they expect it will increase their physiological arousal…a coffee-like scent (which actually contains no caffeine) can elicit a placebo effect.” Note that when a coffee odor was present, “The scent smelled like coffee but contained no actual caffeine or other stimulants.”
Adriana Madzharov, Ning Ye, Maureen Morrin, and Lauren Block. “The Impact of Coffee-Like Scent on Expectations and Performance.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.04.001 Sally Augustin, PhD,a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.