Have you ever wondered why you found instant clicks when you first met your friends? What made you like one person over another upon first impression? It turns out that there is a chemistry basis for the attraction you feel toward your friends, based on smell. Scientists have discovered that similar smells promote social bonding.
Friendships can certainly develop with time, often building on similarities such as age, race, religion, and interests. However, you might have experienced or heard of friendships that formed almost instantaneously. Are these bonds developed merely based on similarities or is there another factor at play? Olfaction, or the sense of smell, is a crucial sensory input in social interactions. Animals constantly sniff themselves and each other to detect environmental hazards and mating partners. Humans also subconsciously sniff themselves and their surroundings, tending to have positive social interactions with those who smell similar. Smell could potentially determine whether strangers become friends even before they see each other.
Interestingly, perceived smells can potentially alter one's behaviour. For instance, men who sniff women's tears experience lowered testosterone levels, which can alter behaviour. Unknowingly, humans can infer psychological states from sniffing others, such as fear, depression, and happiness.
Many areas of the human body can produce and transfer chemosignals, such as through sweat, tears, and breath. Since chemical molecules can freely disperse, chemosensory communication can infer information about the surroundings even when the other senses are blocked, such as in the dark, and even when the odorants are in minuscule quantities. When these odorants bind to specific receptors, the chemical information is converted to corresponding neuronal signals that are transmitted to different parts of the brain for processing. These interactions discriminate the odorants and add an emotional attribute, allowing us to connect memories to specific smells, such as grandma's baked cookies.
Originally thought to be the least important of all senses, the once-ignored sense of smell is now recognized for its role in social interactions and overall well-being, especially as we gain new insights from olfaction loss or alterations due to aging and trauma.
References:
Ravreby, I., Snitz, K., & Sobel, N. (2022). There is chemistry in social chemistry. Science advances, 8(25), eabn0154. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn0154
Boesveldt, S., & Parma, V. (2021). The importance of the olfactory system in human well-being, through nutrition and social behavior. Cell and tissue research, 383(1), 559–567. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-020-03367-7
Sharma, A., Kumar, R., Aier, I., Semwal, R., Tyagi, P., & Varadwaj, P. (2019). Sense of Smell: Structural, Functional, Mechanistic Advancements and Challenges in Human Olfactory Research. Current neuropharmacology, 17(9), 891–911. https://doi.org/10.2174/1570159X17666181206095626
https://neurosciencenews.com/social-bonding-body-odor-90916/ Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board