Social Work Today E-Zine

How children respond to the smell of alcoholic beverages is related to their mothers’ reasons for drinking, according to a new study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center. When asked to smell both the odor of beer and an unpleasant odor and then indicate which they liked better, children of mothers classified as ‘Escape drinkers’ were more likely than children of Nonescape drinkers to select the unpleasant odor over beer.

“Children’s responses to odors provide us with a window into their emotions,” says study lead author Julie Mennella, PhD, a Monell biopsychologist. “When given a choice between beer and pyridine—the smell of rotten eggs—children of mothers who drink to relieve tension and worry choose pyridine as smelling better. That’s pretty powerful.”

In the study, which appears in the journal Alcohol, 145 aged 5 to 8 were presented with seven pairs of odors. One of the odors was always beer; the others were bubblegum, chocolate, cola, coffee, green tea, pyridine, and cigarette smoke. For each pair, the children indicated which odor they liked better.

Mennella notes that because odor information travels directly to areas of the brain that deal with nonverbal aspects of emotion and memory, studying children’s responses to odors provides insights into their emotional worlds.

Mennella comments that additional research is needed to determine whether children who dislike the odor of alcohol and experience it in a negative emotional context are more or less likely as adolescents or adults to seek out alcohol when stressed.

— Source: Monell Chemical Senses Center