Photo: macniak/Depositphotos
From our health to compatibility, our scent can say a lot about us. According to a new study, women can actually detect whether a man is single or in a relationship based on his body odor. This is due to the testosterone levels, which are higher in bachelors than in men with partners.
According to previous research, testosterone levels in men is lower when they are in committed relationships. However, men who are single possess higher testosterone, which has proven to affect the strength of their body odor. Women can determine both of these things by smell. “Humans do not rely solely on visual cues to assess the suitability of a potential partner, but also make judgments using their sense of smell. Specifically, the body odor (BO) of a potential partner is assessed by our sense of smell and given BOs can signal physical health and genetic compatibility with a potential partner, the role of BOs in mate attraction, and preference is not surprising,” they state.
To conduct the study, researchers asked 91 men, half of whom were single and the other half were in relationships, to wear a plain white T-shirt and participate in enough moderate exercise to distribute sweat onto the shirt. Afterward, the garments were brought to 82 heterosexual women, each of whom was asked to take a whiff of six shirts and compare the smell to a photograph of the man who wore the top. “Consistent with our hypothesis, single men’s BO was rated as smelling stronger than the BO of partnered men,” the study adds. “We also found that single men’s faces were rated as more masculine than partnered men’s faces, but only among partnered women.”
While the results of the study supported the hypothesis, they also uncovered other findings. Although women were able to deduce the smell of a man who is currently a bachelor, they did not state that the smell of singletons was more attractive than that of partnered men. Additionally, when shown the photos of all the male candidates, women were more drawn to the faces of men in relationships, who were described as more faithful and reliable than their single counterparts.
h/t: [IFLScience]
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