human development

The smell of freshly baked bread, cakes and pastries don’t just stimulate our appetites – they make us nicer people too, according to psychologists.

French psychologists said that shoppers are more likely to alert a passer-by who has dropped something if at the time they are passing near a bakery.

Researchers at the University of Southern Brittany recruited eight men and women and told them to stand outside either a bakery or a boutique.

They were then asked to step out in front of a passing shopper and “accidentally” drop a handkerchief, packet of tissues or a glove. To be sure of their findings, the experiment was repeated 400 times. And the results were revealing.

When items were dropped outside a bakery, 77 percent of passers-by rushed to pick up the item.
However, only 52 percent bothered to help outside the boutique.

Enticing food odours brings out the altruism in the best of us.