Catch a whiff of this.
Research from Cornell University has found that women could accurately determine if they would like someone based on their smell before even meeting them.
“People take a lot in when they’re meeting face to face. But scent — which people are registering at some level, though probably not consciously — forecasts whether you end up liking this person,” study author Vivian Zayas from Cornell University said, according to Phys.org.
The study, recently published in Scientific Reports, found that a person’s natural scent — mixed with their choice of deodorants, perfumes, and even what they had for lunch — could be the invisible indicator of our friendships.
And our noses don’t just help us make these decisions on first impressions; they also evolve as we get to know our bestie better.
The research team analyzed the reactions of 40 women between the ages of 18 and 30 who participated in a “speed-friending” experiment.
Each woman had their photos taken and then wore plain cotton T-shirts for 12 hours, going about their daily activities to soak up each person’s “diplomatic odor” — a mix of their natural scent and the products they use.
The participants were later shown 100-millisecond flashes of other participants’ photographs and rated their “friendship potential” on several criteria.
But before walking into the “speed-friending” event, participants sniffed the T-shirts of others and rated the scent.
The women then had 10 rounds of four-minute conversations, chatting face-to-face with their fellow participants and were then asked to smell and rate the same T-shirts they had earlier.
The study found that how much someone assumed they would like a person based on their smell aligned with their evaluation of the same person after a four-minute interaction.
Meaning that judgments were influenced by the scent of the T-shirt they had sniffed earlier.
The researchers attributed this to the fact that someone’s “diplomatic odor,” provides subtle, personal preferences that help our brains decide whether we’re likely to get along with someone.
“It’s your dietary choices. Are you a cat person or dog person? What laundry detergent do you use? All these judgments come together,” first author Jessica Gaby explained.
However, participants didn’t just make a judgment once and stink with it.
Their scent ratings shifted significantly, based on how much they enjoyed their introduction to that person.
As they interacted with each person face-to-face, their ratings of that person’s scent changed. If the conversation went well, the smell of that person’s T-shirt was reassessed as more pleasant. If the conversation was awkward, the scent evaluation dropped.
“It makes sense to me that the way you smell impacts the way I judge you,” Gaby said. “But I was most surprised by the learning, by the shift in the second set of readings—one interaction and you’re like, hmmm, maybe not. One in-person interaction with a person can change the way you perceive their body odor.”
So, you’re nose may be sniffing out your bestie and processing information faster than your brain can comprehend.
“It’s amazing, our attunement to other people, even without being consciously aware of how in tune we are,” Zayas noted.
