A young woman walks quickly around a crowded public park, smelling everyone and hoping to find the person with almost the same smell as her. After an extensive amount of searching and smelling, she finds the person she’s been looking for. Not long after they meet, they exchange a few words. They immediately become friends and begin to talk as if they had known each other since they were young.
On June 24th, 2022, a study published in the journal Science Advances, reported pairs of friends that “clicked,” carried similar body odors. Researchers also brought together pairs of strangers to take part in a game and found that their body odors predicted their connection with each other.
Even though many factors contribute to friendships, researchers suggest that an attribute we take notice of is smell. Inbal Ravreby, a graduate student from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, strived to identify if there was an olfactory component in friendships.
To do so, she recruited 20 pairs of friends who “clicked” and put them through a series of tasks to determine their body odor, which included not eating foods that affected body odor, such as onions and garlic, halting the use of deodorant, bathing using unscented soap, and putting on a clean T-shirt which was provided by the lab. Then, they would sleep in their clothing, so their odor would be transferred onto the shirt.
The T-shirts were then collected, and Ravreby and her colleagues used an electronic nose to analyze the volatiles evaporating from each shirt. In addition to the electronic nose, 25 volunteers also assessed the similarity of the odors. If the friends’ odors were closer to each other, then it would support that scent was one of the qualities they picked up on when their friendships began.
However, Ms. Ravreby inferred, “It’s very probable that at least some of them were using perfumes when they met. But it did not mask whatever they had in common.”
To solve this problem, researchers gathered 132 strangers that had gone through the odor identification process to play a mirroring game. Pairs mimicked the motions of each other. Then, they completed questions regarding if they felt a connection with their partners.
Their odor similarities predicted that 71 percent of the time, the strangers felt a positive connection with their partners. This result may show that smelling an odor close to oneself produces a positive feeling.
Friendships form because people connect and relate with each other. Though body odor may be one factor that brings friends together, there are still many other qualities that create companionships, such as one’s personality and values.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/science/friendship-scent-odor.html#:~:text=Indeed%2C%20in%20a%20small%20study,friend’s%20than%20expected%20by%20chance.
On June 24th, 2022, a study published in the journal Science Advances, reported pairs of friends that “clicked,” carried similar body odors. Researchers also brought together pairs of strangers to take part in a game and found that their body odors predicted their connection with each other.
Even though many factors contribute to friendships, researchers suggest that an attribute we take notice of is smell. Inbal Ravreby, a graduate student from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, strived to identify if there was an olfactory component in friendships.
To do so, she recruited 20 pairs of friends who “clicked” and put them through a series of tasks to determine their body odor, which included not eating foods that affected body odor, such as onions and garlic, halting the use of deodorant, bathing using unscented soap, and putting on a clean T-shirt which was provided by the lab. Then, they would sleep in their clothing, so their odor would be transferred onto the shirt.
The T-shirts were then collected, and Ravreby and her colleagues used an electronic nose to analyze the volatiles evaporating from each shirt. In addition to the electronic nose, 25 volunteers also assessed the similarity of the odors. If the friends’ odors were closer to each other, then it would support that scent was one of the qualities they picked up on when their friendships began.
However, Ms. Ravreby inferred, “It’s very probable that at least some of them were using perfumes when they met. But it did not mask whatever they had in common.”
To solve this problem, researchers gathered 132 strangers that had gone through the odor identification process to play a mirroring game. Pairs mimicked the motions of each other. Then, they completed questions regarding if they felt a connection with their partners.
Their odor similarities predicted that 71 percent of the time, the strangers felt a positive connection with their partners. This result may show that smelling an odor close to oneself produces a positive feeling.
Friendships form because people connect and relate with each other. Though body odor may be one factor that brings friends together, there are still many other qualities that create companionships, such as one’s personality and values.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/science/friendship-scent-odor.html#:~:text=Indeed%2C%20in%20a%20small%20study,friend’s%20than%20expected%20by%20chance.
