Can You Smell Status? Testosterone In Body Odor Predicts Perception Of Power

Superiority via smell: Study shows how dominance perceptions are influenced by a whiff of B.O.

Men with higher testosterone levels produce body odors that others rate as more dominant, according to research that reveals how humans may communicate social status through scent.

The study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, examined whether circulating testosterone influences how people perceive social rank through smell alone. Researchers at the University of British Columbia collected worn T-shirts from 74 male volunteers along with saliva samples to measure testosterone levels. Then 797 people smelled these shirts and rated characteristics about the wearers, including how dominant they seemed.

Men whose testosterone measured higher produced scents that raters perceived as coming from more dominant individuals. This relationship held even after researchers controlled for factors like scent intensity, pleasantness, the ethnic background of shirt wearers, and whether raters were male or female.

The study authors noted that awareness of others’ social status is vital for members of social species. The ability to quickly assess whether someone poses a threat or could be a valuable ally would have offered evolutionary advantages throughout human history.

How Testosterone Changes Body Odor

Testosterone plays several biological roles that could alter body odor. The hormone influences apocrine sweat gland function, affects sebum production in skin, and impacts body hair growth. Each represents a potential pathway through which testosterone levels might change the chemical composition or intensity of natural scent.

The study found that men with higher testosterone did produce more intense body odors overall. But the link between testosterone and perceived dominance extended beyond smell intensity alone. Even when researchers accounted for odor strength in statistical models, testosterone still predicted dominance ratings.

Testosterone’s effect appeared specific to dominance rather than social status more broadly. The hormone showed no relationship to how prestigious raters thought shirt wearers might be. This distinction matters because humans achieve high social standing through two different strategies: dominance, which relies on force and intimidation, and prestige, which comes from demonstrating valuable skills that make others want to follow voluntarily.

Chemical Signals Across Species

Chemical signaling represents the most widespread form of communication among organisms on Earth. Many vertebrates use scent to advertise competitive ability and social rank. Dominant male rodents scent-mark their territories, and other males typically avoid these marked areas to sidestep costly conflicts. Ring-tailed lemurs and certain lizard species can detect testosterone-related scent cues from other members of their species.

Humans might be tapping into this same ancient system. Previous research has shown that scents from loved ones can trigger specific responses, that people can detect chemical signals of fear and sickness, and that they rate attractiveness of potential mates based partly on body odor. Several studies have reported that women can perceive dominance and other personality traits through male body odor, though until now no one had directly tested whether testosterone levels drive these perceptions.

The current research included both male and female participants as scent raters and found no difference between the sexes. Both men and women proved equally capable of detecting dominance cues in body scent.

Unanswered Questions About Scent and Status

The research couldn’t determine whether scent-based impressions of dominance were actually accurate. While researchers collected self-reported dominance ratings from the men who provided shirts, these self-assessments showed no relationship to testosterone levels or to how others perceived their scents. Social dominance is about how others view and rank someone within a group rather than self-perception, so this disconnect doesn’t necessarily mean the scent signals were wrong.

The researchers measured testosterone at only one time point, providing a snapshot rather than a comprehensive picture of baseline hormone levels. Averaging testosterone measurements across multiple occasions would likely produce more precise estimates and potentially stronger relationships.

Shirts underwent an estimated 10 to 20 freeze-thaw cycles as different groups of raters smelled them over multiple laboratory sessions, though this wasn’t precisely tracked. Repeated thawing could potentially allow bacterial activity that might alter odor quality. If freeze-thaw cycles diminished scent intensity, results might actually underestimate the true relationship between testosterone and perceived dominance.

Why Dominance But Not Prestige?

The fact that testosterone predicted perceived dominance but not prestige might reflect different evolutionary timelines for these two paths to social status. Dominance through force represents an evolutionarily ancient mechanism that humans share with many other species. Prestige appears unique to humans and likely emerged more recently from pressures to identify and learn from skilled group members.

If detecting dominance through scent offered survival advantages deeper in evolutionary history, natural selection would have had more time to refine this ability compared to detecting prestige. The biological systems linking testosterone to body odor and the perceptual systems allowing others to interpret these signals might have been shaped by millions of years of evolution.

The findings open new questions about how humans navigate social hierarchies through sensory channels they rarely recognize. From first impressions to workplace dynamics, the subtle chemical signals people broadcast and detect may influence outcomes in ways worth understanding better.

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