Summary: A new study reveals that women can subconsciously judge potential friendship compatibility based on scent during first-time meetings. Researchers found that a person’s everyday odor—captured on a worn T-shirt—predicted how much they were liked after short face-to-face conversations.
These “diplomatic” scents, shaped by daily habits and environments, aligned with impressions formed during four-minute speed-friending chats. The study suggests that scent, though often unnoticed consciously, plays a key role in guiding social connections beyond romantic attraction.
Key Facts:
- Odor Predicts Liking: T-shirt scent alone predicted how women evaluated others after a four-minute chat.
- Scent Is Personal: Preferences for scent were highly individual, not universally “good” or “bad.”
- Impressions Shape Scent Perception: Positive live interactions altered later odor judgments.
Source: Cornell University
Two women meeting for the first time can judge within minutes whether they have the potential to be friends — guided as much by smell as any other sense, new Cornell University research on friendship formation finds.
“The Interactive Role of Odor Associations in Friendship Preferences,” published in Scientific Reports, adds to our understanding of the complex picture of what goes on when meeting someone for the first time — and judging the potential for future interactions.
In a study of heterosexual women, the researchers found that personal, idiosyncratic preferences based on a person’s everyday scent, captured on a T-shirt, predicted how much women liked their interaction partners after four-minute “speed-friending” chats.
These face-to-face conversations, in turn, influenced how participants later judged the T-shirt scents alone.
“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,” said Vivian Zayas, professor of psychology and co-author of the paper.
While social olfactory research often focuses on mate selection, the researchers turned their attention to platonic interactions.
And instead of focusing on individuals’ “natural” odor — isolated from products, pets, and other environmental factors — the study leaned into the idea that people actively shape their signature scent through the many choices they make every day, what’s known as their “diplomatic” odor.
Smell-only evaluations paralleled in-person evaluations: If a participant judged someone as having high friend potential based on the smell of a T-shirt, their evaluation of that same person after a four-minute interaction was similarly high.
Moreover, evaluations from the live interaction predicted changes in a second round of diplomatic odor judgments, suggesting that the quality of the in-person interaction influenced how participants perceived the person’s smell.
Zayas said the consistency of judgments across the rating opportunities is remarkable.
“Everybody showed they had a consistent signature of what they liked,” she said.
“And the consistency was not that, in the group, one person smelled really bad and one person smelled really good. No, it was idiosyncratic. I might like person A over B over C based on scent, and this pattern predicts who I end up liking in the chat.”
About this olfaction and social neuroscience research news
Author: Ellen Leventry
Source: Cornell University
Contact: Ellen Leventry – Cornell University
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“The interactive role of odor associations in friendship preferences” by Vivian Zayas et al. Scientific Reports
Abstract
The interactive role of odor associations in friendship preferences
Who we choose to befriend is highly personal, driven by idiosyncratic preferences about other individuals, including sensory cues.
How does a person’s unique sensory evaluation of others’ body odor affect friendship formation?
Female participants took part in a speed-friending event where they made judgments of friendship potential (FP) following a 4-minute live interaction.
Prior to and following the speed-friending event, participants judged the FP of these women based solely on diplomatic odor (including daily perfume/hygiene products) presented on worn t-shirts.
Participants also judged FP based on facial appearance (a 100-ms presentation of portrait photographs).
Judgments based solely on diplomatic odor predicted FP judgments following in-person interactions, beyond the predictive ability of photograph-based judgments.
Moreover, judgments based on the live interaction predicted changes in the second round of diplomatic odor judgments, suggesting that the quality of the live interaction modified olfactory perception.
Results were driven more strongly by idiosyncratic preferences than by global perceiver or target effects.
Findings highlight the dynamic role of ecologically relevant social olfactory cues in informing friendship judgments, as well as the involvement of odor-based associative learning during the early stages of friendship formation.
