Whether it’s your friend’s personality or the common interests you share, something makes them your friend. A study last Wednesday revealed that our nose’s ability to smell alters who that is.
Researchers studied two friends who had an instant connection. Turns out that both body odors were more alike than expected. Later, the researchers used strangers to play a game together while their body odors were analyzed to predict if they would feel a connection.
“Inbal Ravreby, a student in the lab of Noam Sobel, an olfaction researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel” questioned if these instant friendships started from similar smells. By using these types of friends, Ravreby used control factors to alter body odors and stinking up a shirt for scientists to review. Then scents of each shirt were assessed to conclude which ones smelled alike. As expected, “they found that, indeed, the friends’ odors were more similar to each other than those of strangers.”
To confirm, the researchers used strangers who also stank up a shirt but mimicked what the other person did and expressed how good of a connection they had with their partner. “The similarities of their odors, strikingly, predicted whether both felt there had been a positive connection 71 percent of the time.”
There is still room for error in this study as the distance between those smelling each other and other actions taken between the time of study may have altered the results. But we could be more attracted to those that smell like us. Even with the many mysteries, “each puff of air may say more than you know.”
Link to Article: Does Your Nose Help Pick Your Friends
Researchers studied two friends who had an instant connection. Turns out that both body odors were more alike than expected. Later, the researchers used strangers to play a game together while their body odors were analyzed to predict if they would feel a connection.
“Inbal Ravreby, a student in the lab of Noam Sobel, an olfaction researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel” questioned if these instant friendships started from similar smells. By using these types of friends, Ravreby used control factors to alter body odors and stinking up a shirt for scientists to review. Then scents of each shirt were assessed to conclude which ones smelled alike. As expected, “they found that, indeed, the friends’ odors were more similar to each other than those of strangers.”
To confirm, the researchers used strangers who also stank up a shirt but mimicked what the other person did and expressed how good of a connection they had with their partner. “The similarities of their odors, strikingly, predicted whether both felt there had been a positive connection 71 percent of the time.”
There is still room for error in this study as the distance between those smelling each other and other actions taken between the time of study may have altered the results. But we could be more attracted to those that smell like us. Even with the many mysteries, “each puff of air may say more than you know.”
Link to Article: Does Your Nose Help Pick Your Friends
