This is according to a new study by Weizmann Institute scientists. Moreover, the scientists were able to predict in the study what the degree of connection between complete strangers would be only on the basis of their smell as picked up by an "electronic nose"
Humans tend to make friends with strangers who have a body odor similar to their own - according to a new study by Weizmann Institute of Science scientists. Moreover, the scientists were able to predict in the study what the degree of connection between complete strangers would be just on the basis of their smell as picked up by an "electronic nose". their findings, published today in the scientific journal Science Advances, indicate that the sense of smell plays a more significant role in interpersonal relationships than is commonly thought.
Anyone who has walked with a dog knows that man's best friend is able to recognize from a distance whether the puppy advancing towards him is friend or foe. But when a doubt arises in a question, the matter will be resolved through mutual sniffing, at the end of which it will be decided - a game or a fight. But dogs are not unique in this, the central role of the sense of smell in social relations is widely documented in all terrestrial mammals, with the exception of humans. Is the reason for this rooted in the fact that our sense of smell does have a less central role - or maybe its role is more hidden than visible?
Research student Inbal Rebarbi from the group of Prof. Noam suffers In the department of neuroscience at the institute, she bet on the second answer. This hypothesis was based on studies showing that people often smell - even if unconsciously - themselves and others. Since it is known that we tend to make friends with those who are similar to us - whether in appearance, social background, shared values or different physiological indices including patterns of brain activity - Rebarbi hypothesized that it is possible that people use their sense of smell to compare themselves with those around them, and are attracted to those who have a smell body similar to theirs.
To test her hypothesis, Reverbi recruited pairs of non-romantic friends who testified that there was a "click" between them, that is, friendships were formed between them quickly without an in-depth prior acquaintance. She collected scent samples from these pairs and compared them to samples collected from pairs of random strangers. The comparison was made in two ways: first, using an electronic nose that analyzed the chemical signature of the odors received, and then, using volunteers who smelled the collected samples and were asked to estimate the degree of similarity between the different pairs. In both experiments, the body odor similarity of the friend pairs was significantly greater than that between the random pairs.
But maybe the similarity in body odor is not the cause of the connection between people, but a result of it? What if the similarity in body odors stems from eating similar food, or from the fact that friends tend to share common life experiences that also leave their mark on body odor? To rule out this possibility, Rebarbi performed another series of experiments, in which she "smelled" volunteers who did not know each other with the electronic nose, and then asked them to divide into pairs and communicate with each other in a non-verbal way. At the end of the meetings, the volunteers were asked to rate the degree of their affection for the task partner, and to estimate the chance that they could become friends. The analysis of the collected data indicated a significant similarity in body odor in pairs where a good connection was formed between the participants. Moreover, when Rebarbi and the statistician Dr. Kobi Snitz fed the data obtained into a computational prediction model, they were able to accurately predict 71% of the couples who had a good connection. In other words, our body odor seems to contain social information that can make it possible to predict future relationships.
"The findings indicate that 'interpersonal chemistry' does indeed have a chemical component," says Rebarbi. "This does not mean that we behave like hedgehogs or goats", emphasizes Prof. Sobel. "It is quite likely that people rely on other, more dominant signals in social situations. However, when it comes to choosing friends, it seems that our nose plays a more significant role than we tend to think."
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