Associations to Smells

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Would rabbis and priests associate the same thing to the same smell?

This question got me thinking. Got me thinking about how people form different associations to different things, whether it's objects, certain types of people, or smells.

Associations come from people's experiences and everyone has different experiences. Children who have gone through traumatic experiences will have very different associations than children who live a sheltered life. An example might be a child who was abused by a man who smelled like pine trees will create a negative connection with that smell. However, a child who was taken on happy family camping trips might create a more positive association with that same smell.

To answer the question, I don't think they would. I don't think that rabbis and priests, generally speaking, would associate smells in the same way. They grow up associating the world around them to the religion they practice and making sense of their world through their religion. Therefore, they would associate smells to different religious practices or ceremonies.

If you want to learn a little more about the basics of associations, here is a video which breaks down the famous Pavlov example:


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