"Smelly" has a scientific basis

Text ｜ Li Muzi

Several experiments show that people with similar appreciation are easier to become friends immediately.

Related papers were published on June 24 in "Scientific Progress".

Are we making friends because of their smell? Image source: Jessica PrautzschplainPiction

Inbal Ravreby of the Institute of Science in Israel said that when we first met with others for the first time, we sometimes "resonated with strong resonance immediately, which made us feel that each other has been a friend for many years."

She wants to know if this is related to the sense of appreciation, because the previous research found that people will sniff the smell subconsciously when they meet, for example, put their hands on the nose after shaking hands.

Ravreby and colleagues recruited 20 friends with same -sex and non -love relationships. Half of them are women and half are men. They said that they "fell in love at first sight" with each other.

Electronic nose is a device that perceives the chemical composition of odor. Researchers use it to sniff the T -shirts worn by each participant, and find that the smell between friends is closer than the people in the random group.

After the electronic nose heard the T -shirt of the control group composed of 25 independent adults, it also concluded that the smell of the friend group was closer to the random group.

Next, Ravreby and colleagues recruited 17 people who had never met and used electronic nasal to analyze their experience.

Everyone then take turns to play non -language games with other same -sex participants.

The experimental results are consistent with the previous: two groups of people with similar odors are more likely to have a good impression in the game.

Ravreby said that these discoveries are very meaningful because research shows that people tend to become friends who are similar to themselves with their own age, race, education, religion, appearance, personality and values.

She said that other mammals will also judge enemy friends with the help of smell, such as two dogs when they meet in the park.

On the contrary, heterosexual people seem to be attracted by different opposite sex.

For example, a study found that women are more likely to be attracted by men with different immune genes, which may be because their pairing will produce offspring with a stronger immune system.

Related thesis information:

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn0154

"China Science News" (2022-06-29 29 International)

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Edit | Zhao Lu

Capture | Guo Gang

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