When speaking of ‘personal chemistry’ we commonly assume that we are using a colloquial metaphor: people, for some reason, may be getting along well with each other, but molecules stay where they are. In truth, communication, influence and leadership do have a chemical dimension without which our understanding of key social phenomena is incomplete. Knowing what goes on below the threshold of our conscious awareness makes more effective communicators and leaders.
Emotional Contagion
Stress, fear or heightened anxiety make sweat droplets appear on our foreheads, the palms of our hands or under our armpits. This is not your common workout sweat. It is produced by specialized sweat glands producing a substance called Androstadienone (AND). Being inodorous, we cannot consciously smell it, but our brain subliminally registers its presence in the air. It triggers a strong emotional and behavioral response, which can be as strong as that of screaming or a horrified facial expression.
Neuroscientists also found that people exposed to AND tended to take higher risks. They also performed worse in cognitive and reasoning tests, suggesting that followers led by stressed, anxious or fearful leaders not only take more risks than they would otherwise but are also more likely to make bad decisions.
So why are we stressing each other out? The evolutionary significance of a specific ‘fear’ sweat is in the ability to warn others of an imminent danger. Silently signaling danger to other cave tenants that a saber-toothed tiger is roaming just outside has probably saved many lives in prehistoric times. Today’s caves may look differently, and physical threats have been replaced by social threats, but our physiological responses remain unchanged.
Thankfully, experiments have also demonstrated that not only fear, stress or anxiety spread subliminally, but also positive emotional states such as joy, excitement or enthusiasm – transmitted not via chemosignals but through voice and our sense of hearing, seeing or touch.
Given the evolutionary significance of our sense of smell, why are the olfactory capacities of dogs, sharks or elephants so vastly superior to those of humans? Well, turns out they aren’t. In an article in Science, olfactory neuroscientist John McGann claimed that “…humans with intact olfactory systems can detect virtually all volatile chemicals larger than an atom or two, (…) virtually telling all odors apart, with an estimated ability to discriminate more than one trillion potential compounds,” and concluding that “…we are more sensitive than rodents and dogs for some odors and our behavioral and affective states are influenced by our sense of smell.”
Olfaction and Empathy
Our sense of smell and our ability to empathize are connected: women generally have a better sense of smell, and they are also considered more empathetic than men. In experiments, mothers recognized, with a high degree of accuracy, their newborn babies among twenty others by their smell, while fathers couldn’t. But if there really is a link between the acuity of the sense of smell and empathy, psychopaths (who are notoriously unempathetic) should have a weak sense of smell while people suffering from a cold (and the associated loss of smell due to nasal congestion) should show less empathy.
A study conducted by Laura Schäfer and colleagues in 2021 investigated the effects of olfactory impairment on social interactions and empathy. Individuals with weakened olfaction, they found, experience a reduction in empathy because they are less able to detect social and emotional cues conveyed through smells. And non-criminal psychopaths have been proven to have a weak sense of smell. If you have the double misfortune of coming across a psychopath with a running nose, do likewise.
About Us:
Our team of three experts train public and private sector executives in subliminal influence and leadership skills, based on my book Subliminal Leadership – why it is as important as emotional intelligence. Our unique approach is to a) raise their level of awareness of the wealth of communication going on below the threshold of conscious awareness and b) give our trainees the tools to revive and reinvigorate, one by one, the senses that have fallen dormant as a typical consequence of a modern lifestyle. Subliminal leaders are smarter, more empathetic leaders taking better decisions.
Related research (selection):
Alexander Freemantle et al., The Relationship Between Olfactory Function and Emotional Contagion, Chemosensory Perception, Vol. 15, Issue 49, 2022
Natalia Albuquerque et al., Dogs recognize dog and human emotions, Biology Letters, 2015, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Katrin Haegler et al., No fear no risk! Human risk behavior is affected by chemosensory anxiety signals, Neuropsychologia, 2010, Vol. 48, Issue 13
Mehmet K. Mahmut et al., Olfactory Abilities and Psychopathy: Higher Psychopathy Scores Are Associated with Poorer Odor Discrimination and Identification. Chemosensory Perception, Vol. 14, Issue 38, 2012
Laura Schäfer et al., Human olfactory dysfunction: causes and consequences, Cell and Tissue Research, Vol. 383, Issue 1, 2021
John McGann, Poor human olfaction is a 19th-century myth, Science, Vol. 356, Issue 6338, 2017