The Compatibility Of Political Ideas Helps Us Find A Partner… Through Smell
Not everything in politics responds to rational principles. Curiously, there is also an aspect to ideology that is hormonal and that affects our most personal relationships.
The smell, political ideology and sexual attraction… an impossible cocktail?
At least, this seems to conclude research published in the American Journal of Political Sciencewhich suggests that People are more attracted to the smell of people whose political ideology is similar to their own That is to say: not only are we able to discriminate between “conservative” and “progressive” smells but we also use this criterion, to a lesser or greater extent, to find a stable partner.
Investigation
To reach this conclusion, the researchers used a sample of 146 people between 18 and 40 years old who indicated their political position on a numbered scale ranging from “strongly progressive” to “strongly conservative.” From this data, 21 people with extreme odors in one sense or another were chosen. After bathing with odorless soaps and shampoos, these people spent 24 hours with gauze pads stuck to their armpits. During this time they were not allowed to smoke, drink, use deodorants, have sex, or sleep with another person or animal in the bed.
The resulting samples were frozen and stored until a week later, at which time 125 people proceeded to smell each of the samples in random order. In each case, They rated the attractiveness of these smells out of five points Furthermore, these people and those who spent 24 hours with the gauze never saw each other.
The results are surprising: There is a clear pattern of recognition and better evaluation of the smells of those whose political position is similar to one’s own compared to those people with an opposite position.
Once the data has been presented, it is the turn of interpretation. A hypothesis that is considered from evolutionary psychology is that stable couples with similar ideologies tend to create a more stable family context that favors the raising of offspring, and so on. For this reason, the researchers point out, it is not unusual for political inclination to be one of the traits that stable couples have the most in common. Under the apparently simple idea of political compatibility there may be a series of processes that affect not only our social sphere, but even the sexual and breeding level.
The similarity in ideology and values within a family can be very helpful (or avoid many problems) when it comes to effectively maintaining and educating boys and girls until they become adults. The perception of others’ smells would, therefore, not only be one of the mechanisms that reinforce this adaptation mechanism, but also a process that targets our most emotional and subjective level.
The smell communicates
This would be further proof of to what extent the smell can provide data about the sender and be a method of social communication, although at a rather unconscious level. Choosing a partner may be an even less rational experience than we think.
