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Sniffing Out New Friends: Similarity in Body-Odor Predicts the Quality of Same-Sex None-Romantic Dyadic Interactions

View ORCID ProfileInbal Ravreby, View ORCID ProfileKobi Snitz, View ORCID ProfileNoam Sobel
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.14.448352
Inbal Ravreby
The Azrieli National Institute for Human Brain Imaging and Research, and Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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  • For correspondence: inbalra5991@gmail.com noam.sobel@weizmann.ac.il
Kobi Snitz
The Azrieli National Institute for Human Brain Imaging and Research, and Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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Noam Sobel
The Azrieli National Institute for Human Brain Imaging and Research, and Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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  • ORCID record for Noam Sobel
  • For correspondence: inbalra5991@gmail.com noam.sobel@weizmann.ac.il
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Abstract

Most are familiar with the notion of socially “clicking” with someone, namely sensing an immediate bond that can lead to strong and often long-lasting friendships. The mechanisms underlying such rapid bonding remain unclear. Given that body-odor similarity is a critical cue for social interaction in non-human mammals, we tested the hypothesis that body-odor similarly contributes to bonding in same-sex non-romantic human dyads. We observed that objective ratings obtained with an electronic nose, and subjective ratings obtained from human smellers, converged to suggest that click-friends smell more similar to each other than random dyads. Remarkably, we then found that we could use the electronic nose to predict which strangers would later form better dyadic interactions. Thus, humans may literally sniff-out new friends based on similarities in body-odor.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted June 15, 2021.
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Sniffing Out New Friends: Similarity in Body-Odor Predicts the Quality of Same-Sex None-Romantic Dyadic Interactions
Inbal Ravreby, Kobi Snitz, Noam Sobel
bioRxiv 2021.06.14.448352; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.14.448352
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Sniffing Out New Friends: Similarity in Body-Odor Predicts the Quality of Same-Sex None-Romantic Dyadic Interactions
Inbal Ravreby, Kobi Snitz, Noam Sobel
bioRxiv 2021.06.14.448352; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.14.448352

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