ISHE CONFERENCES, 3rd ISHE Summer Institute, Prague, CZ
Does personality smell? Personality assessments on the basis of body odor
Agnieszka Sorokowska, Piotr Sorokowski

Date: 2011-07-08 12:00 PM – 01:00 PM

Abstract

People are able to assess some personality traits of others on the basis of videotaped behavior (e.g., Borkenau & Liebler, 1992; Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007), short interaction (e.g., Watson, 1989) or a photograph (review: Zebrowitz, 1997). In our study we investigated the relationship between body odor and personality. 60 samples of body odors (T-shirts worn by odor donors for 3 consecutive nights) were assessed by 20 raters each. The judges rated sex, age and the Big Five personality dimensions and dominance of the targets. Correlations between averaged ratings on the basis of target’s scent and the target’s criterion scores on the same construct were calculated. The main finding of the presented study is that for a few personality traits, the accuracy of judgments on the basis of their body odor was above chance level. The correlations were the highest for extraversion (.36), neuroticism (.34) and dominance (.29). Further analyses showed that accuracy of assessments of neuroticism differed between sexes (women were the most accurate in judging men) and the ratings of dominance were particularly accurate for assessments of the opposite sex. Our study demonstrates that, among other elements of human physical appearance, body odor might influence the perception of person’s personality. We might assume that biological parameters influencing body odors have effects on personality as well, making odors a cue to personality traits.

References

Borkenau, P., & Liebler, A. (1992). Trait inferences: Sources of validity at zero-acquaintance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 645-657.

Carney, D. R., Colvin, C. R., & Hall, J. A. (2007). A thin slice perspective on the accuracy of first impressions. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 1054-1072.

Watson, D. (1989). Strangers’ ratings of the five robust personality factors: Evidence of a surprising convergence with self-report. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 120-128.

Zebrowitz, L. A. (1997). Reading faces: Window to the soul? Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Does it follow that these personality traits are a function of hormones?

you could extrapolate that to a degree from this research Jaycee. Imo, I think our emotions & thoughts directly affect what pheromones we produce, which is why we get certain "vibes" from people. I know bad people give me splitting head aches.

(07-13-2011 7:04 PM)JAYCEE Wrote:  Does it follow that these personality traits are a function of hormones?

That's a bit simplistic for me, but also mostly correct.

Some people tend to forget that neurotransmitters are hormones. That means the folks who tell you that dopamine or serotonin or whatever other hormone/neurotransmitter is supposedly responsible for a particular hormone/effect: behavioral affect -- including those associated with personality -- does nothing without interacting with other hormones that direct the brain-based behavior associated with personality. Food odors and social odors (i.e., pheromones) directly effect the hormones that affect behavior. And the behavior of one animal effects hormones in other animals via its pheromones, which affect the other animal's behavior.

In my animal model, which we have extended to humans via our experiments, the above scenario is viewed as both a top-down and bottom up reciprocal relationship. Top-down: Pheromones elicit gene activation in nerve cell tissue of the brain that secrete a specific hormone that controls the secretion of all the other hormones involved in sexual behavior/personality. Bottom up: genes in nerve cell tissue of the brain secrete the hormone that controls the secretion of all the other hormones involved in pheromone production associated with personality.

Our experiments with the mixture of pheromones that we showed causes increased flirtatious behavior in women were successful because my animal model predicts the mixture that would most likely be linked to affects on behavior via its effect on hormones, but also because one of the two chemicals in the mixture is an indicator of human specific reproductive fitness.

I know the science is not important to most people, but also think it is becoming important for more people to know what to look for when they evaluate particular product claims.

(07-13-2011 7:14 PM)Beccah Wrote:  you could extrapolate that to a degree from this research Jaycee. Imo, I think our emotions & thoughts directly affect what pheromones we produce, which is why we get certain "vibes" from people. I know bad people give me splitting head aches.

Okay, you're right, but there's no way I can say that scientifically. But most people won't hang around bad people long enough to get the headache. Hope you're not forced to do so. But if you are, try to get them to wear pheromones that you like. You still won't like them, but at least they're less likely to give you the headache.

Quote:Food odors and social odors (i.e., pheromones) directly effect the hormones that affect behavior. And the behavior of one animal effects hormones in other animals via its pheromones, which affect the other animal's behavior.

Also the phenomena of women cycling together as well. Which I thought was due to full moons, until a "blue moon" changed my cycle to the new moons for 3 years, & my friends that I come into contact w/ regularly changed cycles w/ me. The one's that I don't, didn't.
Usually there's an alpha-female, that other females sync up to. Imo, it has to be copulins that are responsible for this, as it's usually the "fertile" body types that are alphas.

(07-13-2011 11:07 PM)Beccah Wrote:  Also the phenomena of women cycling together as well. Which I thought was due to full moons, until a "blue moon" changed my cycle to the new moons for 3 years, & my friends that I come into contact w/ regularly changed cycles w/ me. The one's that I don't, didn't.
Usually there's an alpha-female, that other females sync up to. Imo, it has to be copulins that are responsible for this, as it's usually the "fertile" body types that are alphas.

My friend Martha McClintock wrapped this up nicely in her 1998 paper.
Whither menstrual synchrony? McClintock MK. Annu Rev Sex Res. 1998;9:77-95. Review. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10349026

Abstract

The initial report of menstrual synchrony indicated that social interactions among groups of women could regulate their ovarian cycles. The initial focus on menstrual synchrony was just the beginning of a discovery process, not all facets of the whole phenomenon. Menstrual synchrony was similar to an archeologist finding a fossilized tooth, which demonstrated the existence of a prehistoric creature. Menstrual synchrony could have turned out to be like the chronodonts, prehistoric creatures for which we still have only their fossilized teeth as evidence for their existence. Fortunately, after almost 3 decades of work, we have excavated the site and been able to unearth more about the structure of this particular creature. It is social regulation of ovulation throughout the lifespan--a creature made up not only of menstrual synchrony, but various forms of the timing of spontaneous ovulatory cycles in adults. It also includes the social regulation of ovulation at other points during the reproductive lifespan: puberty, inter-birth intervals and reproductive senescence. Menstrual synchrony is but one indicator of the phenomenon; it is now clear that there is a great deal more to it than was seen at the time of the original report.

"Study shows people can guess personality via body odor." December 5th, 2011.

December 5th, 2011 in Psychology & Psychiatry

(Medical Xpress) -- An interesting study conducted by Polish researchers Agnieszka Sorokowska, Piotr Sorokowski and Andrzej Szmajke, of the University of Wroclaw, has found that people are able to guess a person’s type of personality to a reasonable extent, simply by smelling them, or their clothes. The team did some testing with volunteers, as they describe in their study published in the European Journal of Personality, and found that people could guess another’s personality through odors at least as well as they could when shown videos of people in action.

To find out just how well people can gauge personality types through smelling odors given off by other people’s bodies, the team asked 60 people, half men and half women to wear plain white t-shirts while they slept, for three nights in a row. Each was asked to not use perfumes, soap or deodorants and to not smoke or eat or drink things that affect body odor, such as onions or garlic. Each of the participants were also given personality tests before the t-shirt wearing part of the study began, to asses personality types.

At the end of the three days, the t-shirts were all collected and put into non-clear, labeled plastic bags. Then, two hundred volunteers, half men and half women, were enlisted to sniff the bags and offer their opinions on personality type based on nothing but the odors wafting from the bags. Each volunteer sniffed just six bags to avoid becoming inured presumably and each bag was sniffed by twenty sniffers to get a large enough sample to avoid coincidence.

After all was said and done, those doing the sniffing were able to guess whether the person who had emitted the odor was anxious, outgoing or dominant at least as well as people in a previous study had been able to do watching videos of people interacting with others. Also interesting was that the sniffers were particularly adept at picking up dominate personality types from odors that came from someone of the opposite gender.

While clearly not at a hundred percent, the researchers indicate the study shows that there is something going on regarding how much a person sweats and under what conditions as well as a correlation between the components in sweat and personality traits and that other people are able to pick up on those differences when in their vicinity. Thus, the results are actually two-fold. The first is that people apparently give off personality clues when sweating, and second, that people are able to not only smell the differences in people, but make judgments about them based on what they smell.

More information: Does Personality Smell? Accuracy of Personality Assessments Based on Body Odour, Article first published online: 12 OCT 2011. DOI: 10.1002/per.848

Abstract
People are able to assess some personality traits of others based on videotaped behaviour, short interaction or a photograph. In our study, we investigated the relationship between body odour and the Big Five personality dimensions and dominance. Sixty odour samples were assessed by 20 raters each. The main finding of the presented study is that for a few personality traits, the correlation between self-assessed personality of odour donors and judgments based on their body odour was above chance level. The correlations were strongest for extraversion (.36), neuroticism (.34) and dominance (.29). Further analyses showed that self–other agreement in assessments of neuroticism slightly differed between sexes and that the ratings of dominance were particularly accurate for assessments of the opposite sex.

So which chemicals communicate each? That is the question!

(12-06-2011 9:02 PM)2Soon2Care Wrote:  So which chemicals communicate each? That is the question!

Metabolites of serotonin and dopamine are mentioned in the actual article as is the connection to testosterone metabolism.

"...serotonin and dopamine were shown to contribute to many physiologic functions.... "It is probable that the composition of both apocrine and eccrine axillary secretions is also indirectly influenced by their action."

A better approach might be to use androsterone and androstenol as we did to show affects on women's flirtatious behavior and self reported level of attraction to the man wearing the mixture of pheromones.
Human pheromones, epigenetics, physiology, and the development of animal behavior