Men’s aggressive tendencies can be decreased and aggression-related brain circuits can be changed by exposing them to women’s tears.
Ever wonder why a crying person can make a room silent? According to a recent study, men’s hostility can be decreased by the scent of women’s tears.
Researchers discovered that when they scented women’s tears, male hostility decreased by 44%. The tears altered brain activity in areas of the brain that link aggression with smell, according to a study published in PLOS Biology.
According to the study, crying may act as a calming function among groups, which offers at least one answer for the long-standing evolutionary conundrum of why humans weep.
Social signaling chemicals are present in tears.
Research on mammals has demonstrated that tears contain molecules that function as powerful social signals.
Male rodent tears contain a substance that, depending on whether the tears are from the father or not, either increases a female mouse’s receptivity to sex or causes a pregnant mouse to miscarry.
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Aggression is also influenced by rodent tears. While female mice’s tears contain compounds that prevent male mice from fighting, blind mole rats cover themselves in tears to lessen dominant male hostility towards them. Additionally, the compounds in the tears of young rats serve as their only defense against aggression.
The degree to which tears can influence human hostility was less evident. The authors of the study had previously demonstrated that men’s testosterone levels dropped and their degree of sexual excitement decreased when they scented women’s emotional tears.
Tears of emotion decreased aggression by 44%.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate how relaxing tears can be. Six female donors provided the authors with “emotional” tears, which they then presented to men while they engaged in an aggressive video game.
The males engaged in the game in a separate experiment while having their brain activity monitored by an MRI scanner.
When the men scented the women’s tears, they behaved 43.7% less aggressively than when they sniffed a control solution. Smelling tears were shown in the brain imaging trials to decrease activity in areas of the brain linked to anger.
According to senior scientist Joam Sobel of Weizmann’s brain sciences department in the US, “we’ve shown that tears activate olfactory receptors and that they alter aggression-related brain circuits, significantly reducing aggressive behavior.”
Tears are a “chemical blanket offering protection against aggression — and this effect is common to rodents and humans, and perhaps to other mammals as well,” according to the scientists’ findings, according to a statement from Sobel.
The authors propose that the impact of tears may be significant in nonverbal communication, such as in infants.
The authors stated in a statement that since infants are unable to communicate verbally, it can be crucial for them to rely on hormonal cues to defend themselves from assault.
Aggression Variations by Gender
The study adds to a substantial body of research demonstrating the significant impact that gender and sex play in human violence.
The 2015 International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences lists gender disparities as “one of the most robust and oldest findings in psychology.”
The study demonstrates how, at least in men, natural biological cues such as the compounds in tears might modify violent tendencies.
The authors want to include women in the research as an extension. We were aware that sniffing tears reduces testosterone and that men are more likely than women to become aggressive when their testosterone levels are lowered.
To get a more complete picture of this impact, we now need to expand this research to include women, the authors stated.
