Want
to know someone better? Just take a whiff of the person’s clothes – it
could help detect his or her personality traits, a new study suggests.
In the Polish study, participants were asked to assess how outgoing,
anxious or dominant people were by just taking a whiff of their clothes.
In the study, researchers asked raters to sniff white-cotton T-shirts
that were worn for three consecutive nights by 100 men and 100 women who
had taken personality tests. The raters were then asked to make
judgments about the shirt-wearer’s personality based on what they
smelled. Though the sniffers didn’t nail it every time, they were able
to predict whether the shirt donors were outgoing and extroverted or
neurotic and anxious about as accurately as other raters who predicted
personality traits after watching a video, researchers said. They said
the sniff-testers were particularly accurate when detecting dominance in
a member of the opposite sex, suggesting that men and woman are using
more than their eyes and ears when choosing a potential mate.
