Manipulation of body odour alters men’s self-confidence and judgements of their visual attractiveness by women

Abstract

Human body odour is important in modulating self-perception and interactions between individuals. Artificial fragrances have been used for thousands of years to manipulate personal odour, but the nature and extent of influences on person perception are relatively unexplored. Here we test the effects of a double-blind manipulation of personal odour on self-confidence and behaviour. We gave to male participants either an aerosol spray containing a formulation of fragrance and antimicrobial agents or an otherwise identical spray that lacked these active ingredients. Over several days, we found effects between treatment groups on psychometric self-confidence and self-perceived attractiveness. Furthermore, although there was no difference between groups in mean attractiveness ratings of men's photographs by a female panel, the same women judged men using the active spray as more attractive in video-clips, suggesting a behavioural difference between the groups. Attractiveness of an individual male's non-verbal behaviour, independent of structural facial features, was predicted by the men's self-reported proclivity towards the provided deodorant. Our results demonstrate the pervasive influence of personal odour on self-perception, and how this can extend to impressions on others even when these impressions are formed in the absence of odour cues.

Psychology of Fragrance Use: Perception of Individual Odor and Perfume Blends Reveals a Mechanism for Idiosyncratic Effects on Fragrance Choice

“…For instance, Roberts et al [30] asked their targets, half of whom were using a commercial deodorant (the other half used a placebo deodorant), to take a video recording while introducing themselves to an imagined person of the opposite-sex. An independent group of raters who saw the muted videos judged deodorant users as more attractive than the placebo group.…”

Concordant Cues in Faces and Voices

“…Informed by contradictory findings relating to the effect of static and dynamic facial stimuli on ratings of attractiveness (e.g., Lander, 2008;Roberts, Little, et al, 2009a;Rubenstein, 2005) and face-voice matching ability (Kamachi et al, 2003;Lachs & Pisoni, 2004;Mavica & Barenholtz, 2013), we tested whether facial stimulus type affected the extent of face-voice concordance. In both experiments, performance was unaffected by whether the facial stimuli were dynamic or static.…”

The Future of an Applied Evolutionary Psychology for Human Partnerships

“…This is not a new practiceperfumery has existed for several millennia (Stoddart, 1990)-but it is today a billion dollar industry in the Western world. The use of perfumes usually has positive consequences on how individuals are perceived by others in the context of sexual attraction (e.g., Baron, 1981;Fiore, 1992;Roberts et al, 2009), at least partly because of negative associations with, and cultural prejudice toward, those with intense body odor (e.g., Schleidt, Hold & Attili, 1981). However, widespread and constant use of artificial fragrances could potentially disguise subtle, but biologically meaningful, cues carried in body odor.…”