A new study by Noam Sobel, of the Olfaction Research Group at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and others are reporting in the journal Science this week that men in their study who sniffed the tears of crying women produced less testosterone and found female faces less arousing.
Previous studies in animals such as mice and mole rats have shown that tears convey important chemical messages which are used to attract or repel others of the same species. There is good evidence for an interesting type means of higher-level chemical communication. These previous studies also incidentally show that “emotional” tears are chemically distinct from “eye-protecting” types of tears.
Scientific American’s “60 Second Science” (via link or listen below) podcast has a good audio overview of the study for those without the time to read the paper.
In press reports, Adam Anderson, a University of Toronto psychologist who was not involved with the study, posited that the results may imply that “tears have some influence on sexual selection, and that’s not something we associate with sadness.” He continued, “It could be a way of warding off unwanted advances.”
This study provides a new hypothesis for the evolution of crying in humans. (Now if only we could find some better reasons for laughter…)
The take home message may be that guys should not take their dates out to weepy chick flicks, or alternately women reluctantly accepting “pity dates” should force their suitors to exactly these types of testosterone damping films.
