body odor and rubber?
No, not unless that's how Ron Weasley smells like.
According to the results of a study by Demattè, Österbauer, and Spence (2007), olfactory cues play a role in judging facial attractiveness, particularly unpleasant odors.
They designed an experiment wherein female participants had to rate the attractiveness of a male face presented on a computer monitor while simultaneously being exposed to one of four odors--clean air, male fragrance, body odor, and rubber. Each of the 16 participants was exposed to the three types of odors, pleasant-male fragrance, neutral-clean air, and unpleasant-rubber or body odor.
Their results indicate that participants rated the attractiveness of a face significantly less when exposed to an unpleasant odor as opposed to a pleasant or neutral odor. Furthermore, no difference was found in the attractiveness rating when they were exposed to a neutral or pleasant scent. Neither did it matter if the odor was "body relevant", that is, rubber and body odor had the same effect.
But wait...
Isn't body odor a manifestation of pheromones which trigger sexual attraction?
Well, that depends on whether or not we have a vomeronasal organ or VNO, which is responsible for the detection of pheromones.
Some say it's there but it's too small, others say it still works, and the rest say that there isn't one at all. From an evolutionary perspective, it has become obsolete for us humans, we lack the brain parts, and if a scientist happens to find a VNO region, it's simply a vestige. (Thank you, Mr. F. Bryant Furlow, for summing up a rather lengthy debate.)
Hold that deodorant though!
In an article about body odor and attraction, Dr. Jessica Payne summarized a study conducted back in 2005 by Martins, Preti, Crabtree, Runyan, Vainius, and Wysocki. Their results indicate that body odors affect attraction and that there are different body odors for each gender. Participants were made to bathe with odorless products as well as abstain from strong smelling spices and keep cotton wedges between their arm puts for ...
NINE DAYS!
They were then asked to rate the pleasantness of the odors captured in those cotton wedges. It turns out that heterosexual men, heterosexual women, homosexual men, and homosexual women all had different emitted odors and odor preferences.
So what happened to the study by Demattè, Österbauer, and Spence?
Why did body odor cause a lower rating of attractiveness?
It might be that the body odor they exposed their participants too was really too foul and unpleasant, or their participants weren't exposed to the right gender's body odor.
Too bad for Jean-Baptiste Grenouille though, he didn't smell like rubber or B.O. and one drop of his final perfume made him irresistible to all...
genders.
Too bad for Jean-Baptiste Grenouille though, he didn't smell like rubber or B.O. and one drop of his final perfume made him irresistible to all...
genders.
References:
Bryant Furlow, F. (1996, March 1). The smell of love. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/the-smell-love
Demattè, M. L., Österbauer R., & Spence, C. (2007). Olfactory cues modulate facial attractiveness. Chemical Senses, 32, 603-610. Retrieved from http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/6/603.full.pdf+html
Martins, Y., Preti, G., Crabtree, C. R., Runyan, T., Vainius, A. A., & Wysocki, C. J. (2005) Preference for human body odor is influenced by gender and sexual orientation. Psychological Science, 16, 694-701. Retrieved from http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/9/694.short
Payne, J. D. (2010, April 13). What can body odor tell us about sexual attraction and sexual orientation? The Observer. Retrieved from http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/what-can-body-odor-tells-us-about-sexual-attraction-and-sexual-orientation-1.1340258#.UCeO-p0gdu4
finite incantatem? [.gif]. (n.d.). Retrieved August 12, 2012, from http://favim.com/image/297758/
[untitled .gif of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley] (n.d.). Retrieved August 12, 2012, from http://letstheriveranswer.tumblr.com/search/despair
[untitled .gif of the closing scene of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer]. (n.d.). Retrieved August 12, 2012 from http://herbihalt.tumblr.com/post/28503295958
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