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Sexual Preference and the Self-Reported Role of Olfaction in Mate Selection

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Chemosensory Perception

Abstract

Introduction

Olfactory cues are important in mating in many species, including humans. These odorants may be relevant because of their value as a cue to the reproductive fitness of a potential mate (Trivers 1972), but they could also be important as a signal of mate appropriateness in terms of sexual preference (Lübke and Pause 2015). One way to discriminate between these ideas is to examine whether the importance of olfaction in determining a mate is decreased in homosexual individuals, for whom selecting a mate is dissociated from the selection of a reproductive partner. The present research question asked whether the value of olfactory cues for attraction varies between homosexual and heterosexual groups.

Method

The present study examined odor importance in mating by presenting the Romantic Interest Survey (Herz and Inzlich 2002) to 453 individuals: 142 heterosexual women, 161 heterosexual men, and 150 gay men.

Results

Regression analysis indicated that heterosexual men valued the sense of smell when selecting a mate more than gay men did. In contrast, gay men valued the sound of a partner’s voice more than did heterosexual men. Heterosexual men and women did not differ by sex in terms of the value of olfaction; both men and women value olfactory aspects of a potential mate highly.

Conclusions

The higher value of olfactory cues to heterosexual individuals supports the idea that olfaction in mate selection may act as a cue to reproductive fitness, and indicates that olfactory information is not as valuable to gay men in mate selection.

Implications

These findings suggest that many people seem to be looking for similar attributes when searching for a potential romantic partner, and that olfaction is an important aspect of the process.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the work of Michelle Woodward, who created the automated version of the survey used for this work in partial fulfillment of requirements for her undergraduate honors thesis (Woodward 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Le Moyne College, 1419 Salt Springs Rd, Syracuse, NY, 13214, USA

    Theresa L. White & Caitlin Cunningham

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  1. Theresa L. White
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  2. Caitlin Cunningham
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Contributions

The authors contributed to the paper equally, but in different ways. The first author (TW) took part in the conceptualization of the work, initiated data collection, and drafted the article. The second author (CC) analyzed the data, interpreted the results, and critically revised the manuscript. Both authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Theresa L. White.

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Funding

This work was supported by Le Moyne College, in particular by the Psychology Research Fund.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

All participants agreed to an adult informed consent that had been approved by the local Institutional Research Board before beginning the study. The data for this survey was collected completely anonymously in that all IP addresses were stripped from the responses. Data was collected over secured, encrypted SSL/TLS connections to ensure that user data was safe in transit, secure, and available only to intended recipients.

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White, T.L., Cunningham, C. Sexual Preference and the Self-Reported Role of Olfaction in Mate Selection. Chem. Percept. 10, 31–41 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-017-9223-9

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