Happy sweat

If you really want to let someone know that you appreciate what that are telling you then you might say, “I see what you are saying” or perhaps, to be even more emphatic, “I hear you!” Sight and hearing are seen as positive affirming senses but the poor old sense of smell barely gets a look in as far as positive vocabulary goes even though, as a new study has shown, it is critical to our understanding of the emotions of others.

For the new study a group of Caucasian men, who did not smoke or take any medications, were asked to drink no alcohol, not engage in sex, not eat pungent food, and not exercise excessively during the course of the study. When the men came into the laboratory they dried and rinsed their armpits and absorbent pads were attached to their armpits. The men then put on a pre-washed t-shirt and sat down to watch a video clip that was intended to induce a feeling of either fear, happiness, or neutrality. Tests confirmed that the videos did induce the intended feelings in the men.

The men then completed a test designed to measure their “implicit” emotional state that involved viewing Chinese symbols and rating how pleasant or unpleasant each one was. Without knowledge of Chinese symbols, the more pleasant they rated the symbols the more positive their implicit mood.

The sweat pads were then removed and stored in vials.

In the second phase of the experiment, women with no psychological disorder, respiratory disease or other illness were recruited. The women were seated in a chair and placed their chins on a chin rest. The vial holding the sweat pad was placed in a holder attached to the chin rest immediately prior to the women sitting down to complete a task.

The women were exposed to a sweat sample of each type with a five-minute break between each.

Questionnaires and testing showed that women exposed to “happy sweat” showed a more “global focus” in attempting tasks, which is an indication of a positive mood. Additionally, facial expression analysis did indicate they were picking up the emotions in the sweat. Those smelling the “fear” sweat showed greater activity in the medial frontalis muscle, a common feature of fear expressions. By contrast women who were exposed to happy sweat showed more facial activity typical of a genuine “Duchenne” smile. However, the sweat samples did not influence the women’s perceptions of the Chinese symbols.

So while sweat does communicate emotion at an unconscious level that doesn’t seem to permeate through to conscious behaviour.

Still, next time you really want to let someone know you comprehend their emotions try saying, “I smell where you are coming from”, if they are a fellow reader of this column they will warmly receive your understanding and if they aren’t a reader of this column then, well, it’s probably time to let that relationship drop anyway.