Can you feel the status? Testosterone in body odor predicts power perception

Superiority via smell: a study shows how perceptions of dominance are influenced by a whiff of BO

Men with higher testosterone levels produce body odors that others consider more dominant, according to research that reveals how humans can communicate their social status through scent.

The study, published in Evolution and human behaviorexamined whether circulating testosterone influences how people perceive social rank through smell alone. Researchers at the University of British Columbia collected worn T-shirts from 74 male volunteers along with saliva samples to measure testosterone levels. Then, 797 people smelled these shirts and rated the characteristics of those wearing them, including their dominant appearance.

Men with higher testosterone levels produced scents that raters perceived as coming from more dominant individuals. This relationship held even after the researchers controlled for factors such as scent intensity, pleasantness, the ethnicity of the shirt wearers, and whether the raters were male or female.

The study authors noted that awareness of the social status of others is vital for members of social species. The ability to quickly assess whether someone poses a threat or could be a valuable ally would have provided evolutionary advantages throughout human history.

How Testosterone Changes Body Odor

Testosterone plays several biological roles that can modify body odor. The hormone influences the functioning of apocrine sweat glands, affects sebum production in the skin and impacts hair growth. Each represents a potential pathway by which testosterone levels could alter the chemical composition or intensity of natural scent.

The study found that men with higher testosterone levels produced more intense body odors overall. But the link between testosterone and perceived dominance extended beyond odor intensity alone. Even when researchers accounted for odor strength in statistical models, testosterone still predicted dominance ratings.

The effect of testosterone appears specific to dominance rather than social status in general. The hormone showed no association with how prestigious raters thought the shirt wearers might be. This distinction is important because humans achieve high social status through two different strategies: dominance, which relies on force and intimidation, and prestige, which comes from demonstrating valuable skills that inspire others to willingly follow them.

Chemical signals according to species

Chemical signaling represents the most widespread form of communication between organisms on Earth. Many vertebrates use scent to advertise their competitive ability and social rank. Dominant male rodents mark their territories by scent, and other males generally avoid these marked areas to avoid costly conflicts. Ring-tailed lemurs and some species of lizards can detect testosterone-related odors from other members of their species.

Humans could exploit this same ancient system. Previous research has shown that the odors of loved ones can trigger specific responses, that people can detect chemical signals of fear and illness, and that they rate the attractiveness of potential partners based in part on body odor. Several studies have reported that women can perceive dominance and other personality traits through male body odor, although until now, no one had directly tested whether testosterone levels caused these perceptions.

The current research included both male and female participants as odor raters and found no gender differences. Men and women were found to be equally capable of detecting dominance signals in body odor.

Unanswered questions about scent and status

The research couldn’t determine whether odor-based impressions of dominance were actually accurate. While the researchers collected self-reported dominance ratings from the men who provided shirts, these self-ratings showed no connection with testosterone levels or with how others perceived their scents. Social dominance concerns how others perceive and classify someone within a group rather than self-perception. This disconnection therefore does not necessarily mean that the olfactory signals were erroneous.

The researchers measured testosterone at a single time point, providing a snapshot rather than a complete picture of baseline hormone levels. Averaging testosterone measurements across multiple occasions would likely produce more precise estimates and potentially stronger relationships.

The shirts underwent approximately 10 to 20 freeze-thaw cycles as different groups of evaluators smelled them over several lab sessions, although this was not tracked precisely. Repeated thawing could potentially allow bacterial activity that could alter odor quality. If freeze-thaw cycles decreased scent intensity, the results might actually underestimate the true relationship between testosterone and perceived dominance.

Why domination but not prestige?

The fact that testosterone predicts perceived dominance but not prestige could reflect different developmental timelines for these two pathways to social status. Domination by force represents an ancient evolutionary mechanism that humans share with many other species. Prestige appears unique to humans and likely emerged more recently under pressure to identify and learn from qualified group members.

If detecting dominance through smell offered survival advantages deeper in evolutionary history, natural selection would have had more time to refine this ability than detecting prestige. The biological systems linking testosterone to body odors and the perception systems that allow others to interpret these signals may have been shaped by millions of years of evolution.

The findings open new questions about how humans navigate social hierarchies via sensory channels they rarely recognize. From first impressions to workplace dynamics, the subtle chemical signals that people broadcast and detect can influence outcomes in ways that deserve to be better understood.