Lisa Flower, PhD candidate in sociology at the Department of Sociology at Lund University, however provides an alternative explanation:
- My research shows that sniffing can be a way of marking a switch by the speaker from stating a personal opinion to stating a professional opinion and vice versa. I have termed this the “the emotional sniff” as personal statements are permitted to be more emotional. The emotional sniff is also used when making statements that could be considered inappropriate to one's professional role.
Lisa Flower’s article “The (un)emotional law student”, which discusses “the emotional sniff” is the second-most downloaded research output from Lund University this year and has been downloaded almost 500 times in the five days proceeding the presidential debate.
The (un)emotional law student