Abstract
Androstadienone, a component of male sweat, has been suggested to function as a human pheromone, an airborne chemical signal causing specific responses in conspecifics. In earlier studies androstadienone has been reported to increase attraction, affect subjects' mood, cortisol levels and activate brain areas linked to social cognition, among other effects. However, the existing psychological evidence is still relatively scarce, especially regarding androstadienone's effects on male behaviour. The purpose of this study was to look for possible behavioural effects in male subjects by combining two previously distinct branches of research: human pheromone research and behavioural game theory of experimental economics. Forty male subjects participated in a mixed-model, double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment. The participants were exposed to either androstadienone or a control stimulus, and participated in ultimatum and dictator games, decision making tasks commonly used to measure cooperation and generosity quantitatively. Furthermore, we measured participants' salivary cortisol and testosterone levels during the experiment. Salivary testosterone levels were found to positively correlate with cooperative behaviour. After controlling for the effects of participants' baseline testosterone levels, androstadienone was found to increase cooperative behaviour in the decision making tasks. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that androstadienone directly affects behaviour in human males.
Highlights
Pheromones are known to influence behavior in numerous animal species, but it has for long been thought that they are not important for human behavior and social interaction
Perhaps the most widely studied of the putative human pheromones is the compound androstadienone (4, 16-androstadien-3-one), found in relatively large quantities in male axillary sweat [1,2]
Non-heterosexual participants were excluded from the analysis, because earlier research suggests that pheromones may function in a sexual orientation-dependent manner [9,10]
Summary
Pheromones are known to influence behavior in numerous animal species, but it has for long been thought that they are not important for human behavior and social interaction. Androstadienone has been reported to modulate women’s attributions of male attractiveness [3], have, in some cases sex and context dependent, effects on mood (for example, [4,5]), and direct attention towards emotional information [6]. Androstadienone has been shown to maintain increased levels of salivary cortisol in women [7], activate hypothalamus in a sex [8] and sexual orientation dependent manner [9,10], and activate brain areas related to social cognition and attention [11]. Psychological evidence outside the, often context dependent, mood enhancing qualities remains scarce. This is especially true for male responses to androstadienone
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