January 08, 2009
A woman may not consciously think of a man's sweat during intimate moments. But her brain appears to recognize the scent and the significance of the emotions it conveys right away.
That's the conclusion of a Rice University study that exposed 19 twentysomething women to various scents, including "normal" sweat from males as well as so-called "sexual" sweat -- more on this in a moment.
Although the research doesn't have immediate implications for male-female relationships -- don't put away the cologne just yet, fellas -- it does advance scientists' understanding of how humans communicate chemically.
Everyone pretty well understands how people communicate through talking and facial expressions. But elsewhere in the animal kingdom, chemicals such as pheromones are commonly used to communicate, be it to attract a mate or warn a competitor.
The question Rice psychologist Denise Chen and her colleagues set out to better understand is how people might communicate chemically and, more specifically, how the brain processes chemical signals from other humans.
The experiment they devised involved the collection of sweat from men who wore rayon/polyester pads under their armpits. For normal sweat, they watched 20-minute educational videos and, for sexual sweat, 20-minute erotic videos.
As it happens, humans have a variety of sweat glands. The sweat produced after a long day's work is different from that after a workout, which is different, in turn, from that produced by a roll in the hay.
Chen and her colleagues then devised settings in which female participants were exposed to different sweat "scents" while being monitored by brain-scanning, magnetic resonance imaging equipment. The women didn't know what they were smelling and couldn't differentiate among the various types of sweats.
But their brains could.
"The sexual sweat lit up different regions of their brains," Chen said.
She said the work suggests the brain can recognize an emotional component in sexual sweat, somehow differentiating it from normal sweat.
The research is part of an emerging scientific discipline that aims to determine whether human brains can process pheromones -- chemicals that trigger a natural behavioral response in animals of the same species.
"This is a very hot and controversial area of research," said Dr. Jay Gottfried, an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University.
The Chen study, Gottfried said, adds to the scientific debate, because it used natural scents rather than synthetic ones.
The next step, he said, is to determine whether sweat scents trigger behavioral changes in woman, such as making them feel more or less attracted to a man.
Showing posts with label Human mating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human mating. Show all posts
Feb 27, 2009
Dating choice more about science,
CHICAGO, Feb 14, 2009
Personality types directed by your brain's neurochemicals may unveil who you are and whom you love, said professor of anthropology Helen Fisher Saturday, the Valentines's Day.
Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist and author of Why We Love, presented her latest research results on human mating choice, at the American Academy or Arts and Sciences (AAAS) 2009 annual meeting.
Fisher has devoted 30 years of research and five books to the study of human attraction. She believes that DNA dictates the chemical makeup of brains and determines to whom people are most attracted.
After examining the personality type and dating choices of about 28,000 individuals by a questionnaire on the online dating site Chemistry.com, Fisher reported how one's primary neuro-driven personality type guided the initial dating choice.
She and her co-researchers identified four personality types: explorers, builders, directors and negotiators.
"Love is a complicated mechanism," she said. "Although today I only covered it as a biological mechanism, dating choice involves both cultural and biological reasons."
As for long-term relationships, she said "It's not been studied yet but I encourage all couples who have been in a long-term relationship to go to my website and take the survey ..."
AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people. Founded in 1848, it serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, and 10 million individuals.
Personality types directed by your brain's neurochemicals may unveil who you are and whom you love, said professor of anthropology Helen Fisher Saturday, the Valentines's Day.
Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist and author of Why We Love, presented her latest research results on human mating choice, at the American Academy or Arts and Sciences (AAAS) 2009 annual meeting.
Fisher has devoted 30 years of research and five books to the study of human attraction. She believes that DNA dictates the chemical makeup of brains and determines to whom people are most attracted.
After examining the personality type and dating choices of about 28,000 individuals by a questionnaire on the online dating site Chemistry.com, Fisher reported how one's primary neuro-driven personality type guided the initial dating choice.
She and her co-researchers identified four personality types: explorers, builders, directors and negotiators.
"Love is a complicated mechanism," she said. "Although today I only covered it as a biological mechanism, dating choice involves both cultural and biological reasons."
As for long-term relationships, she said "It's not been studied yet but I encourage all couples who have been in a long-term relationship to go to my website and take the survey ..."
AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people. Founded in 1848, it serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, and 10 million individuals.
Feb 18, 2009
The Real Laws of Attraction
A new study reveals a surprising gap between what men and women say they want in a partner and what they actually choose.
Karen Springen
Newsweek Web Exclusive
We've all heard the adage: Men want a beautiful partner, while women want a guy who can bring home the bacon. But is it true?
In the new issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Northwestern University social psychologists Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick report that both genders initially place the greatest value on physical attractiveness, followed by personality and then earning potential.
To find out more about how we choose our mates and dates, Finkel and Eastwick invited 163 undergraduate college students to a two-hour speed-dating event. Each student spent four minutes with a dozen potential partners—and then looked at their photographs on a computer, and answered yes or no to indicate whether they'd like a date. The participants then rated their choices, based on who they found most attractive and who they thought would have the greatest earning potential. Finkel and Eastwick followed the students for a month to check on their subsequent romantic activities.
NEWSWEEK's Karen Springen spoke with Finkel and Eastwick about their research in the Northwestern Relationships Lab and about how men and women may be rethinking old questions about what they want in a mate. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Before you held your speed-dating event, you had participants state how much appearance, personality and earning potential would matter in deciding whether they wanted to see someone again. More women said earning prospects were important in an ideal romantic partner, and more men said beauty. But that's not what they ended up valuing in real life, right?
Finkel: There was a disconnect between what they said they wanted and what they actually wanted. Physical attractiveness tends to inspire desire a lot. Earning prospects tend to inspire desire a moderate amount [for both men and women].
Why do many men and women have the wrong idea about what they really value in a romantic partner?
Finkel: We all live in a culture where we're bathed in this idea that women are more interested in earning potential than men are. So when we're asked what is it we desire, we say, I'm a man—I'm more interested in beauty. That's what's sensible to them in the absence of doing a careful analysis of everyone they've ever been attracted to.
Eastwick: Men and women haven't sat down and looked at all the available evidence on all the people they've been attracted to over the course of their lives and come up with a comprehensive answer. People have theories, and those theories guide us, but they might not always be correct.
How does speed dating help you figure out what men and women want in a partner?
Finkel: Speed dating allows you to examine each person's preference across a range of potential suitors. We can look not only at what you said you preferred 10 days before the event but what you actually preferred when you met living, breathing beings. We can compare what you said was important to you and what actually was important to you.
What's the take-home message for people looking for love?
Finkel: Beware the shopping list. When you go into finding a romantic partner, don't have this list of necessary characteristics that you need. Go in with an open mind. Actually meet people face to face. Because you might find yourself surprised by the person you're attracted to. Those sex differences and mate preferences that are so reliable when people report on hypothetical ideal partners disappear when people meet living, breathing partners.
So personality really matters, too?
Finkel: It's not that looks don't matter, or earning potential doesn't matter, or personality doesn't matter. It's that they matter equally strongly for men and women. Looks are most important, personality is second and earning potential is third—at least in the first month of dating.
And that's good news, right?
Finkel: It's good news with regard to earning prospects and bad news with regard to looks!
So what's the verdict on beauty vs. brains?
Finkel: It might be that men and women don't differ in how much looks matter in initial attraction. We are running a study now, in collaboration with a speed-dating company, with 6,500 people who were single at the time. Now three years later, we're following up to see whether they got married and did that person match. What we'll be able to do is see if their stated ideals three years ago actually match with the person they're marrying.
Eastwick: My hunch is that their ideals changed, not that they found the person who matched their original ideals.
The other dating adage is that attractive people get extra benefits in life and may just marry other attractive people, who earn more money. Right?
Eastwick: Attractive women are marrying attractive husbands, and attractive people make more money because attractive people get more of everything in life.
Did you actually get some love matches in the course of your study?
Eastwick: We did create several couples. I don't know if any of those couples are still around today. When we like to brag about the effectiveness of speed dating, we will talk about figures like one third of our speed daters in the month following the event spent at least some time hanging out with somebody they hadn't known prior to the event.
How did you find the participants?
Eastwick: We always collaborate with student groups. We had to turn away hundreds and hundreds of people.
So lots of students wanted to do their part for research and science?
Eastwick: They'll date for science, yes!
Finkel: We have videotapes of the dates this time. It's funny how frequently people will say things like, "This is kind of goofy, but I'm happy to do it. It's for a study."
Are you married?
Finkel: I am engaged, and Paul is in a serious relationship.
Did you ever meet anyone through speed dating?
Finkel: We did as a class field trip go speed dating four years ago. It was fun. Basically everybody Paul met said yes to him. I ended up dating someone.
Karen Springen
Newsweek Web Exclusive
We've all heard the adage: Men want a beautiful partner, while women want a guy who can bring home the bacon. But is it true?
In the new issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Northwestern University social psychologists Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick report that both genders initially place the greatest value on physical attractiveness, followed by personality and then earning potential.
To find out more about how we choose our mates and dates, Finkel and Eastwick invited 163 undergraduate college students to a two-hour speed-dating event. Each student spent four minutes with a dozen potential partners—and then looked at their photographs on a computer, and answered yes or no to indicate whether they'd like a date. The participants then rated their choices, based on who they found most attractive and who they thought would have the greatest earning potential. Finkel and Eastwick followed the students for a month to check on their subsequent romantic activities.
NEWSWEEK's Karen Springen spoke with Finkel and Eastwick about their research in the Northwestern Relationships Lab and about how men and women may be rethinking old questions about what they want in a mate. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Before you held your speed-dating event, you had participants state how much appearance, personality and earning potential would matter in deciding whether they wanted to see someone again. More women said earning prospects were important in an ideal romantic partner, and more men said beauty. But that's not what they ended up valuing in real life, right?
Finkel: There was a disconnect between what they said they wanted and what they actually wanted. Physical attractiveness tends to inspire desire a lot. Earning prospects tend to inspire desire a moderate amount [for both men and women].
Why do many men and women have the wrong idea about what they really value in a romantic partner?
Finkel: We all live in a culture where we're bathed in this idea that women are more interested in earning potential than men are. So when we're asked what is it we desire, we say, I'm a man—I'm more interested in beauty. That's what's sensible to them in the absence of doing a careful analysis of everyone they've ever been attracted to.
Eastwick: Men and women haven't sat down and looked at all the available evidence on all the people they've been attracted to over the course of their lives and come up with a comprehensive answer. People have theories, and those theories guide us, but they might not always be correct.
How does speed dating help you figure out what men and women want in a partner?
Finkel: Speed dating allows you to examine each person's preference across a range of potential suitors. We can look not only at what you said you preferred 10 days before the event but what you actually preferred when you met living, breathing beings. We can compare what you said was important to you and what actually was important to you.
What's the take-home message for people looking for love?
Finkel: Beware the shopping list. When you go into finding a romantic partner, don't have this list of necessary characteristics that you need. Go in with an open mind. Actually meet people face to face. Because you might find yourself surprised by the person you're attracted to. Those sex differences and mate preferences that are so reliable when people report on hypothetical ideal partners disappear when people meet living, breathing partners.
So personality really matters, too?
Finkel: It's not that looks don't matter, or earning potential doesn't matter, or personality doesn't matter. It's that they matter equally strongly for men and women. Looks are most important, personality is second and earning potential is third—at least in the first month of dating.
And that's good news, right?
Finkel: It's good news with regard to earning prospects and bad news with regard to looks!
So what's the verdict on beauty vs. brains?
Finkel: It might be that men and women don't differ in how much looks matter in initial attraction. We are running a study now, in collaboration with a speed-dating company, with 6,500 people who were single at the time. Now three years later, we're following up to see whether they got married and did that person match. What we'll be able to do is see if their stated ideals three years ago actually match with the person they're marrying.
Eastwick: My hunch is that their ideals changed, not that they found the person who matched their original ideals.
The other dating adage is that attractive people get extra benefits in life and may just marry other attractive people, who earn more money. Right?
Eastwick: Attractive women are marrying attractive husbands, and attractive people make more money because attractive people get more of everything in life.
Did you actually get some love matches in the course of your study?
Eastwick: We did create several couples. I don't know if any of those couples are still around today. When we like to brag about the effectiveness of speed dating, we will talk about figures like one third of our speed daters in the month following the event spent at least some time hanging out with somebody they hadn't known prior to the event.
How did you find the participants?
Eastwick: We always collaborate with student groups. We had to turn away hundreds and hundreds of people.
So lots of students wanted to do their part for research and science?
Eastwick: They'll date for science, yes!
Finkel: We have videotapes of the dates this time. It's funny how frequently people will say things like, "This is kind of goofy, but I'm happy to do it. It's for a study."
Are you married?
Finkel: I am engaged, and Paul is in a serious relationship.
Did you ever meet anyone through speed dating?
Finkel: We did as a class field trip go speed dating four years ago. It was fun. Basically everybody Paul met said yes to him. I ended up dating someone.
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