Researchers led by Gaby et al. conducted a unique “Speed-Friending” event on a college campus, engaging 40 female volunteers through a structured four-part process. Initially, participants had headshots taken, followed by an assessment phase where they rated potential friendships based solely on visual impressions from photographs of their peers.
In the second phase, the volunteers wore T-shirts for 12 hours during their everyday activities. These shirts were later collected and packaged for further evaluation. The third phase involved participants smelling the T-shirts of their anonymized peers and rating their friendship potential based on the odors. This was followed by a live interaction segment, where participants spent four minutes conversing with each woman before re-evaluating friendship potential using the T-shirts’ scents.
The findings revealed a significant correlation between the in-person assessments of friendship potential and those derived from olfactory evaluations, highlighting a remarkable alignment in the ratings. Additionally, assessments made following the live interactions were strong predictors of changes in the final odor-based evaluations, indicating a learning mechanism at play.
Co-author Vivian Zayas from Cornell University noted, “Everybody showed they had a consistent signature of what they liked. The consistency wasn’t simply about one person smelling good or bad; it was highly individualistic. For instance, I might prefer person A over B and C based on scent, and this preference pattern aligns with who I ultimately connect with during our conversations. While people gather a lot of information during face-to-face meetings, scent—often registered subconsciously—can significantly influence feelings of affinity.”
The study’s authors recognized the limitations of their research, emphasizing that their sample consisted solely of college-aged heterosexual women. They pointed out that olfactory and other cues might function differently across various demographics, such as older or younger individuals, non-American women, and men. They suggested that future research could explore a broader age spectrum, examine different developmental stages, investigate male-male platonic interactions, and assess how scent affects friendship perceptions in diverse cultural contexts.
Scientific Reports, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-94350-1 (About DOIs).
