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Publicly released:
2024-07-24 09:01
Despite popular belief, it seems men may not be more attracted to the smell of a woman at peak fertility after all. German researchers asked 91 men to rate the scents of 29 women, at different stages of their menstrual cycle, on attractiveness, pleasantness and intensity and they found no link between attractiveness ratings and fertility. They also chemically analysed the women’s body odour (BO) samples and found that their chemical composition didn’t change across their cycles. Previous studies have suggested that men rate the scent of ovulating women as more attractive, but the authors of this new research say we need to critically revise the reliability of that previous evidence.
Journal/conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Link to research (DOI): 10.1098/rspb.2023.2712
Organisation/s: Leipzig University. Germany
Funder: This work was funded by The Leakey Foundation (awarded to A.W.), a graduate funding by Leipzig University (DFPL R00017 awarded
to M.Z.), a Saxonian graduate scholarship (grant no. LAU-R-N-04-2-1022 awarded to M.Z.) and the European Fund for Regional Structure
Development, EFRE (‘Europe funds Saxony’, grant no. 100195810 awarded to A.W.).
Media release
From: The Royal Society
Femme fertile – Despite popular belief, men are not more attracted to the smell of a woman at peak ovulatory fertility. Ninety-one men (aged 19-40) rated the scents of 29 women, at different stages of their menstrual cycle, on attractiveness, pleasantness and intensity. No correlation was found between attractiveness ratings and fertility, and chemical analysis suggested there was no difference in the chemical makeup of the odour of fertile women. Proceedings BCombined perceptual and chemical analyses show no compelling evidence for ovulatory cycle shifts in women’s axillary odourProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological SciencesWe investigated whether women’s axillary body odour changes across the ovulatory cycle by combining perceptual and chemical analyses in a scenario where men encounter these women for the first time. While previous studies suggested that men prefer the scent of fertile women, our findings showed no significant effect of the menstrual cycle on men’s attraction to women’s odour. Additionally, the chemical composition of women’s axillary odour did not vary across the cycle. Together, our results showed no convincing support for a chemical fertility cue in women´s axillary odour that is functional during first encounters in modern humans.
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