Sample response

A pheromone is a chemical substance produced and released into the environment by an animal affecting the behaviour of others of its own species. Most commonly, pheromones affect sexual and mating behaviours. Although psychologists have not found actual pheromones in humans, there is research showing that some chemicals under controlled conditions may lead humans to show behaviours similar to what we see in animals.

One potential human pheromone is androstadienone – found in male semen and sweat. Zhou et al (2014) wanted to see if androstadienone influenced human sexual behaviour.  To do this he carried out an experiment with a sample of heterosexual men and women and gays and lesbians.

Participants watched stick figures walking on a screen and then were asked to guess the gender of the stick figure. While watching the screen, the participants were exposed to the smell of cloves. In the experimental condition, the cloves were mixed with androstadienone and in the control condition, only cloves were used. The findings showed that when heterosexual females and gay men were exposed to androstadienone, they had a higher rate of identifying the stick figures as “masculine” than the control group.  In addition, Androstadienone had no significant effect on men or lesbian women. The researchers concluded that Androstadienone could be a pheromone which influences mating behaviour in humans.  

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