When you meet someone new, you probably think that smelling them is the last thing you do. Putting your nose over a stranger’s shoulder just isn’t pleasant. Contrary to that belief, smell plays a role when finding friends. You wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who smells like a landfill. Adding on, a small study published by the journal Science Advances suggests that there’s more to smell than we think.
Inval Ravreby, a graduate student working in an olfactory lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, investigated pairs of friends whose friendship just “clicked”.
Ravreby found 20 pairs of these friends and put them through a routine to minimize outside effects on body odor. Test subjects stopped eating onions and garlic, stopped using deodorant and after-shave, and used unscented soap. Finally, after a couple of days, the subjects slept in a fresh new T-shirt and returned it. Researchers found that the friends’ odors were more similar to each other than to strangers. In addition to smell, previous scientists researching friendships found that friends may also have similar genetics, brain activity, and appearance.
However, correlation doesn’t equal causation. It may have been that similar lifestyles lead them to smell the same. Ravreby also suspected that many may also have been using perfume when they met. To combat this, the researchers found 132 strangers and made pairs of subjects mimic each other’s movements. It was found that people with similar odors felt a positive connection 71 percent of the time. The study suggests that similar odors generate positive feelings.
What does this really mean? Researcher Dr. Sobel says, “If you think of all the body odor molecules, it’s 6,000 at least,” and there are many more to be found. Because there is an abundance of body odor molecules it is possible that the study’s definition may be too accommodating. It’s difficult to determine whether odor is a true factor in friendship without further research on the topic.
Inval Ravreby, a graduate student working in an olfactory lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, investigated pairs of friends whose friendship just “clicked”.
Ravreby found 20 pairs of these friends and put them through a routine to minimize outside effects on body odor. Test subjects stopped eating onions and garlic, stopped using deodorant and after-shave, and used unscented soap. Finally, after a couple of days, the subjects slept in a fresh new T-shirt and returned it. Researchers found that the friends’ odors were more similar to each other than to strangers. In addition to smell, previous scientists researching friendships found that friends may also have similar genetics, brain activity, and appearance.
However, correlation doesn’t equal causation. It may have been that similar lifestyles lead them to smell the same. Ravreby also suspected that many may also have been using perfume when they met. To combat this, the researchers found 132 strangers and made pairs of subjects mimic each other’s movements. It was found that people with similar odors felt a positive connection 71 percent of the time. The study suggests that similar odors generate positive feelings.
What does this really mean? Researcher Dr. Sobel says, “If you think of all the body odor molecules, it’s 6,000 at least,” and there are many more to be found. Because there is an abundance of body odor molecules it is possible that the study’s definition may be too accommodating. It’s difficult to determine whether odor is a true factor in friendship without further research on the topic.
