Children's hedonic response to the smell of alcohol: Effects of parental drinking habits

Background: Previous research in our laboratory revealed that during the fi rst year of life, infants who had more exposure to alcohol, as inferred fro m questionnaires about parental alcoholism and alcohol intake, mouthed an e thanol-scented toy more compared with less exposed infants. The present stu dy focused on older children (3.8-6.0 years) to determine whether their hed onic response to the odor of alcohol was related to the drinking habits of their parents. Methods: Age-appropriate, game-like tasks that were fun for children and mi nimized the impact of language development were used to examine their prefe rences and identification of a variety of odors, one of which was beer. Results: The children's preference for the odor of beer varied as a functio n of the escape drinking of their mothers alone or both parents. That is, c hildren who lived in a household in which one or both parents drank alcohol to escape were significantly more likely to dislike the odor bottle that c ontained alcohol when compared with children whose parents did not drink to escape. This difference between the groups was odor specific. Additional a nalyses also revealed that the fathers of children who rejected the beer od or reported drinking significantly more than the fathers of those who liked the odor. Conclusions: These findings suggest that some early learning about alcohol is based on sensory experiences and anchor it to children's experiences at home and the emotional context in which their parents experience alcohol.