Olfactory Modulation of Interpersonal Distance Toward Minority Outgroups in Virtual Reality: The Role of Social Odor Awareness and Religious Attitudes

Prejudices toward stigmatized social groups are shaped not only by cognitive and cultural factors but also by sensory and affective mechanisms. Olfactory perception, disgust sensitivity, and religious beliefs have recently emerged as important modulators of both implicit and explicit social biases. In our poster, we present a novel methodological approach to studying the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of these processes, alongside data from our latest laboratory experiment. This study investigated whether exposure to specific odors influences interpersonal distance decisions involving minority outgroups within an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment.