According to a recent study, men who smell a woman’s tears have lower testosterone and sexual desire.
Researchers published online in the journal Science that the libido-dampening impact happened even when the males never saw the women weep and were unaware that they were smelling tears.
These findings are the first to imply that tears can be a chemical medium for human communication.
Humans clearly communicate through speech and vision, but new studies have revealed that chemosignals are also very informative. Even though chemosignals have no smell—participants in Sobel’s study were unable to distinguish between tears and saline solution—they still have an impact on physiology and behaviour.
The discovery of a link between brain activity, tears, and aggressiveness raises the possibility that social chemosignaling affects human aggression in ways other than simple animal curiosity.
The study’s overall findings suggested that men’s conduct may be influenced by chemical signals found in women’s tears, which might lessen their tendency toward aggression.
