Sniffing for Love !
Finding your perfect match really is about the right chemistry, but it’s a complex equation, says Martie G Haselton in Sexual attraction: The magic formula, an article in American Scientist.
We spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to find that special someone. Our appetite for a relationship fuels a billion-pound industry of matchmaking services. Yet we’re often not satisfied. A 2005 survey of more than 900 people who had been using online dating services revealed that three-quarters had not found what they were looking for. We seem as much in the dark as ever about who is a suitable match.
The George Clooneys and Angelina Jolies of the world are sex symbols for predictable biological reasons. Of course, we don’t fall in love with super-mates like these. The average person who did would be headed nowhere, because super-mates are inaccessible to all but a few. This is likely to be part of the reason why love evolved: to bond us for co-operative child-rearing, but also to assist us in choosing, so that we don’t waste time and energy falling for someone who is unattainable. People tend to fall for others who, on attractiveness, intelligence and status, are of a similar ranking to themselves.
What about the less obvious cues of attraction? Fascinating work on genetics and mate preferences has shown that each of us will be attracted to people who possess a particular set of genes, known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which plays a critical role in the ability to fight pathogens. Mates with dissimilar MHC genes produce healthier offspring with broad immune systems.
Evidence shows that couples tend to be less similar in their MHC than if they had been paired randomly. How do people who differ in their MHC find each other? Evidently, smell is an important cue. People literally sniff out their mates. In studies, people tend to rate the scent of T-shirts worn by others with dissimilar MHC as most attractive. This is what sexual ‘chemistry’ is all about.
The message here is: trust your instincts — except that there is an alarming exception. For women taking hormone contraceptives, the reverse is true: they prefer men whose MHC genes are similar to their own. Thus, women on the pill risk choosing a mate who is not genetically suitable (best to smell him first and go on the pill afterwards).
We spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to find that special someone. Our appetite for a relationship fuels a billion-pound industry of matchmaking services. Yet we’re often not satisfied. A 2005 survey of more than 900 people who had been using online dating services revealed that three-quarters had not found what they were looking for. We seem as much in the dark as ever about who is a suitable match.
The George Clooneys and Angelina Jolies of the world are sex symbols for predictable biological reasons. Of course, we don’t fall in love with super-mates like these. The average person who did would be headed nowhere, because super-mates are inaccessible to all but a few. This is likely to be part of the reason why love evolved: to bond us for co-operative child-rearing, but also to assist us in choosing, so that we don’t waste time and energy falling for someone who is unattainable. People tend to fall for others who, on attractiveness, intelligence and status, are of a similar ranking to themselves.
What about the less obvious cues of attraction? Fascinating work on genetics and mate preferences has shown that each of us will be attracted to people who possess a particular set of genes, known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which plays a critical role in the ability to fight pathogens. Mates with dissimilar MHC genes produce healthier offspring with broad immune systems.
Evidence shows that couples tend to be less similar in their MHC than if they had been paired randomly. How do people who differ in their MHC find each other? Evidently, smell is an important cue. People literally sniff out their mates. In studies, people tend to rate the scent of T-shirts worn by others with dissimilar MHC as most attractive. This is what sexual ‘chemistry’ is all about.
The message here is: trust your instincts — except that there is an alarming exception. For women taking hormone contraceptives, the reverse is true: they prefer men whose MHC genes are similar to their own. Thus, women on the pill risk choosing a mate who is not genetically suitable (best to smell him first and go on the pill afterwards).
posted by Vivek Panda @ 12:25 AM
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