Imagine you are at a party, talking to someone you’ve never met. Underneath the smiles and polite small talk, you are subconsciously sizing-up whether this person is friend material. You might notice that they have a similar accent, facial features and fashion sense. You’ll even note their body odor, according to a new study.
Most animals rely on their sense of smell when interacting with others. And researchers in Israel speculated that it plays a role in human friendships, too.
“Humans are constantly sniffing ourselves and others, mostly without awareness,” says Noam Sobel, a professor of neuroscience at the Weizmann Institute of Science, who led the study.
Researchers hypothesized that sniffing strangers is yet another way to evaluate how much somebody resembles ourselves. “We become friends with people who are similar to us in the way they look or their values,” Sobel says. “But also similar in more surprising ways, ...
