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Pheromones - an evolutionary trick?

December 03, 1998

Female pheromones - airborne chemical messengers - may have evolved to trick men's thought processes: they can block men's ability to judge women's attractiveness.

This finding was reported today, Wednesday 16 December, by biologists Astrid Juette and Professor Karl Grammer of the University of Vienna, as part of a symposium on pheromones and human behaviour to The British Psychological Society's London Conference, held at the Institute of Education.

Juette and Grammer had exposed men unknowingly to synthetic vaginal pheromones, and asked them to rate the attractiveness of female faces and voices. Attractiveness ratings increased, and differences between ratings of the women disappeared, compared to when no pheromones were present.

Also in the symposium:

Psychologists Dr Andrew Scholey, Jessica Bosworth and Vithleem Dimitrakaki of the University of Northumbria found that heterosexual men and women, when knowingly exposed to opposite-sex (underarm) pheromones, rated an opposite-sex character in a fictional vignette as more sexually and physically attractive (but not as more intelligent or self-assured). Men (but not women) also rated the character as more likeable. Both sexes' mood also became more positive in the presence of pheromones. Dr Scholey says, "These effects may be the evolutionary backdrop that facilitates sexual interaction". However, he also points out that pheromones are only one of many factors influencing sexual attraction.

Madelynne Arden, Kingston University, found no evidence of women's menstrual cycles becoming synchronised, and that earlier evidence showing this effect for women in close contact - supposedly through pheromones - was flawed.

Psychologist Dr Steve van Toller, Warwick University, criticised the "pheromone industry" - commercial companies that try to persuade the public to buy synthetic pheromones to attract the opposite sex. "As with many things," he says, "the true situation is much more complex than this simplistic concept", and it is highly unlikely that human beings, "can be readily or simply sexually manipulated by body odours".

British Psychological Society (BPS)

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