A groundbreaking study published in Scientific Reports has found that our sense of smell plays a significant role in forming impressions of others, particularly when it comes to deciding whether we want to be friends with someone. Researchers from Cornell University and Middle Tennessee State University conducted a study on heterosexual women who participated in speed-friending events.
The study involved two main methods: participants wore T-shirts for 12 hours to capture their everyday scent, and then sniffed the shirts again after evaluating their potential friendship partners. The results showed that personal preferences based on a person’s scent predicted how much women liked their interaction partner following four-minute chats in a crowded room.
Interestingly, when participants later viewed the same person’s portrait for just 100 milliseconds, their judgments of the T-shirt scent alone were consistent with their initial assessments. This suggests that our brains can quickly form associations between a person’s smell and their potential as a friend.
The study also found that preferences based on scent predicted how much participants liked someone after viewing their photograph. This is remarkable, considering that people often form impressions based solely on appearance.
Lead researcher Vivian Zayas emphasized the significance of this finding: “A person’s everyday, natural scent is a strong predictor of whether others might want to interact with them.” The study highlights the importance of our sense of smell in forming social connections and underscores the idea that smell can be a powerful tool in evaluating potential friendships.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-04-friendship-whiff-scent-choice-friends.html