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SAQ – Pheromones
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IB psych SAQ on pheromones that helped me score a 7 throughout the psych HL course.
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Outline/Describe/Explain the effect of pheromones on human behavior.Describe one study into the effect of pheromones on human behavior.
Pheromones – chemical messengers released by animals that can influence members of the
same species via smell – are theorized to influence human behavior. The existence of
pheromones is still disputed in humans because the vomeronasal organ (the organ that other
animals use to detect pheromones) is not present in humans. But some studies still investigate
how potential pheromones may exist and influence humans because it is possible that humans
can process pheromones in an olfactory processor elsewhere in the brain. An example of a
pheromone is androstadienone, and has been linked to the behavior of attraction. Attraction,
according to APA, is the interest in and liking of one individual by another, or the mutual interest
and liking between two or more individuals.
One study that investigated the putative pheromone androstadienone on whether it can
modulate women's judgment of men's attraction is Saxton et al., a field experiment that placed
female college students into 1 of 3 conditions: 1) clove oil, 2) clove oil + androstadienone, 3)
water. Cotton wool with one of the above 3 substances were placed under the females’ noses,
and they were asked to rank the attractiveness of males that they had met in a speed date
setting. Results showed that participants that smelled androstadienone rated males significantly
higher, and were more likely to ask them out on a second date. From this, researchers
concluded that androstadienone increases attraction that females feel towards males by
signaling health and reproductive fitness, since only the condition where the pheromone was
smelt lead to an increase in rated attractiveness.
From the use of controls, it could be clearly seen that pheromones indeed were the factor that
influenced the perceived attractiveness of males by eliminating the possibility that the scent of
pheromones themselves impacted females’ decisions (covered the smell with clove oil, so
control and experiment would smell identical). This can be explained by evolution; humans
choose to form personal relationships with those that can allow us to procreate advantageously.
In a world where there is a high risk of genetic diseases and illnesses, it is evolutionarily
advantageous for us to mate with a partner with healthy traits that can help our offspring avoid
such risks, in turn increasing their likelihood of survival and the passing on of those genes into
following generations. Hence, by detecting health via pheromones, it helps us become attracted
to reproductively fit individuals that can increase chances that our offspring survive.
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