Human body odour, symmetry and attractiveness

1999/05/07 by Anja Rikowski, Karl Grammer · 20 citations
Psychology · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Neuroscience · #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior #Animal Behavior and Reproduction #Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies

paper · doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0717

openalex publication_date 1999/05/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Several studies have found body and facial symmetry as well as attractiveness to be human mate choice criteria. These characteristics are presumed to signal developmental stability. Human body odour has been shown to influence female mate choice depending on the immune system, but the question of whether smell could signal general mate quality, as do other cues, was not addressed in previous studies. We compared ratings of body odour, attractiveness, and measurements of facial and body asymmetry of 16 male and 19 female subjects. Subjects wore a T-shirt for three consecutive nights under controlled conditions. Opposite-sex raters judged the odour of the T-shirts and another group evaluated portraits of the subjects for attractiveness. We measured seven bilateral traits of the subject's body to assess body asymmetry. Facial asymmetry was examined by distance measurements of portrait photographs. The results showed a significant positive correlation between facial attractiveness and sexiness of body odour for female subjects. We found positive relationships between body odour and attractiveness and negative ones between smell and body asymmetry for males only if female odour raters were in the most fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. The outcomes are discussed in the light of different male and female reproductive strategies.

Citations

• Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures

Cited by

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• Women’s fertility across the cycle increases the short-term attractiveness of creative intelligence
• MHC-correlated odour preferences in humans and the use of oral contraceptives
• Physical Attractiveness and Health in Western Societies: A Review.
• Hormonal correlates of women's mid-cycle preference for the scent of symmetry
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• Major histocompatibility complex genes, symmetry, and body scent attractiveness in men and women
• Attractiveness of women's body odors over the menstrual cycle: the role of oral contraceptives and receiver sex
• The Scent of Symmetry A Human Sex Pheromone that Signals Fitness?
• Women's preferences for men's scents associated with testosterone and cortisol levels: Patterns across the ovulatory cycle
• Psychology of Fragrance Use: Perception of Individual Odor and Perfume Blends Reveals a Mechanism for Idiosyncratic Effects on Fragrance Choice
• Beauty Is Mostly in the Eye of the Beholder: Olfactory Versus Visual Cues of Attractiveness
• Odor [wikipedia]
• Physical attractiveness [wikipedia]