- Joined
- Aug 20, 2002
- Messages
- 2,167
- Reaction score
- 0
Family Members Stink to Prevent Incest--Source: Wayne State University; Reuters
An aversion to the smell of your own family members could be natures way of deterring incest, say researchers. A team at Wayne State University in Detroit enlisted 25 families with children aged 6 to 15 years, and gave each of them a T-shirt and odorless soap to wash with, according to Britain's New Scientist magazine.
They were told to place the worn T-shirts in a plastic bag, and were later asked to sniff two T-shirts- one belonging to a family member and one worn by a stranger. Initially, the researchers tested each participant's ability to recognize the shirt belonging to a family member.
Mothers and fathers were generally able to identify the T-shirts belonging to their pre-adolescent children. Mothers were slightly more successful than dads, but neither could identify which child was which. Children under the age of nine, with the noteworthy exception of sons who had been breastfed, were generally unable to identify the T-shirts of their mothers, but the older children could. All of the children recognized their father's smell.
Researchers were quite fascinated with the fact that whether or not they were able to identify the shirt belonging to a relative, most of the participants preferred the smell of a stranger's shirt. In particular, mothers did not like the smell of their children's shirts, and children clearly had a negative response to the smell of their fathers.
Interestingly, while the children of the same sex were not offended by their siblings smell, the children of the opposite sex were. Researcher Tiffany Czilli said that she believed the dislike of each other's odors was part of nature's way of preventing incest, by making people less appealing to their closest relatives, Reuters reported.
Other possibilities were considered, including the theory that a child's repugnance of their father's smell may be a sign of that child's efforts to be independent. But Dustin Penn of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City warned that asking people about their preferences could be unreliable, Reuters recounted.
An aversion to the smell of your own family members could be natures way of deterring incest, say researchers. A team at Wayne State University in Detroit enlisted 25 families with children aged 6 to 15 years, and gave each of them a T-shirt and odorless soap to wash with, according to Britain's New Scientist magazine.
They were told to place the worn T-shirts in a plastic bag, and were later asked to sniff two T-shirts- one belonging to a family member and one worn by a stranger. Initially, the researchers tested each participant's ability to recognize the shirt belonging to a family member.
Mothers and fathers were generally able to identify the T-shirts belonging to their pre-adolescent children. Mothers were slightly more successful than dads, but neither could identify which child was which. Children under the age of nine, with the noteworthy exception of sons who had been breastfed, were generally unable to identify the T-shirts of their mothers, but the older children could. All of the children recognized their father's smell.
Researchers were quite fascinated with the fact that whether or not they were able to identify the shirt belonging to a relative, most of the participants preferred the smell of a stranger's shirt. In particular, mothers did not like the smell of their children's shirts, and children clearly had a negative response to the smell of their fathers.
Interestingly, while the children of the same sex were not offended by their siblings smell, the children of the opposite sex were. Researcher Tiffany Czilli said that she believed the dislike of each other's odors was part of nature's way of preventing incest, by making people less appealing to their closest relatives, Reuters reported.
Other possibilities were considered, including the theory that a child's repugnance of their father's smell may be a sign of that child's efforts to be independent. But Dustin Penn of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City warned that asking people about their preferences could be unreliable, Reuters recounted.
