Women's Tears are Kryptonite to your Manhood

kingofsp

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Mar 1, 2008
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Human Tears Contain a Chemosignal

We found that merely sniffing negative-emotion–related odorless tears obtained from women donors induced reductions in sexual appeal attributed by men to pictures of women’s faces. Moreover, after sniffing such tears, men experienced reduced self-rated sexual arousal, reduced physiological measures of arousal, and reduced levels of testosterone.


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For you nerds who like to see details behind studies (I'm with you):


We first asked whether emotional tears have a discernable odor. We obtained negative-emotion tears from two donor women (ages 30 and 31) who watched sad films in isolation [Fig. 1A and suporting online material (SOM)]. We then tested whether 24 men (mean age 28.12 ± 4.05 years) could smell a difference between these fresh tears and saline. The saline was first trickled down the cheek of the donor women to account for any skin-bound odor sources. Participants failed to discriminate the smell of tears from the smell of saline [mean correct = 31 ± 14%, t(23) = 0.81, P < 0.659; Fig. 1C], indicating that emotional tears did not have a discernable odor.


Figure 1:

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Emotional tears are odorless. (A) To obtain tears, donor women watched sad films in isolation, using a mirror to capture tears into a vial. A typical donation contained ~1 ml. (B) For continuous exposure, tears deposited onto a pad allowed ongoing nasal airflow exposure but not transdermal diffusion. (A) and (B) are illustrations. (C) Accuracy of discrimination of tears from saline. (D to F) Scatterplots of (D) intensity, (E) pleasantness, and (F) familiarity estimates of tears and saline in all experiments. Within-participants comparisons [(D) to (F) here and in all other figures] are presented in scatterplots along a unit slope line (x = y), where each point reflects a participant. If data accumulate under the line, then values were greater for tears; if data accumulate above the line, then values were greater for saline. If data accumulate on the line, then there was no difference between tears and saline. (Inset) Bars reflect the number of participants on each side of the unit slope line (left ordinate), and the horizontal dashed line reflects the mean values and standard error (right ordinate).



We next asked whether sniffing such odorless tears influences perception. We compared two alternative hypotheses: (i) Tears may contain a chemosignal related to their typical context of sadness (14). Indeed, seeing tears on faces renders the faces sadder in appearance (4). (ii) Alternatively, human tears may function like mouse tears, where they signal information related to sociosexual behavior (10–12).

Twenty-four men (mean age 26.92 ± 3.13 years) first sniffed a jar containing a compound (fresh tears or trickled saline; tears were from three donor women, mean age 30.33 ± 0.5 years) and then rated the compound’s intensity, pleasantness, and familiarity. To keep study participants exposed to the compound for the rest of the experiment, 100 μl of the compound was deposited onto a pad pasted onto the participant’s upper lip, directly under his nostrils (Fig. 1B). The jar was presented by an additional, non-crier female experimenter who was blind to the jar’s contents (15). Participants next viewed on-screen emotionally ambiguous pictures of women’s faces and used a visual-analog scale (VAS) to rate the sadness (24 faces, Fig. 2A) and sexual attraction (18 faces, Fig. 2B) attributed to each face. Interleaved with these ratings were 40 VAS questions from a standardized questionnaire that assesses empathy (16). Each man participated twice, on consecutive days, once with tears and once with saline, counterbalanced for order across participants, and double-blind as to compound identity.


Figure 2:

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There's a lot more, but the above gives the study's setup.

It's pretty interesting stuff (to me, anyway), though there's lots of of room for error and misinterpretation, especially with such a small population.

Sorry to break the border with the large pics. I'm hoping the data makes it easier to forgive me. :)