Research
Etienne Benson
Monitor Staff
October 2, 2002
Pheromones In Context
This is a field of research where the opinions of experts range from gung-ho boosterism to outright skepticism, where accusations of data fudging and sexism fly, and where the popular press is always watching from the sidelines, ready to trumpet each new claim and counterclaim to the world as soon as it is made.
On one side of the debate are the pheromone boosters, some of whom have founded companies that sell pheromone-based perfumes and pharmaceuticals. On the other side are skeptics who argue that the phrase “human pheromone” is a contradiction in terms. Between the two extremes lies a middle ground of researchers who are doubtful of the strongest claims but unwilling to ignore the possibility that humans, like many other animals, use chemicals to communicate.
Among them is Martha McClintock, PhD, who can be credited with starting the human pheromone phenomenon. In 1971, the University of Chicago psychologist, then an undergraduate at Wellesley College, published a study showing that the menstrual periods of women who lived together tended to converge on the same time every month, an effect thought to be mediated by pheromones.
Now, more than 30 years later, McClintock and others in the middle ground are finally making progress in understanding the effects of human pheromones. Many aspects of the field remain unclear–including the definition of the term “pheromone” itself (see sidebar on page 48)–but at least one conclusion can be drawn from the research conducted so far: Their effects are far more dependent on social and psychological context than originally suspected.
Research
Future studies may settle some of these controversies. McCoy hopes to extend her work on sex pheromones to postmenopausal women. McClintock intends to study the influence of odors given off by breast-feeding women on the fertility of other women. Meredith, Johnston and others plan to continue studying the biological mechanisms by which chemical messages affect social behavior in rodents and other animals.
How important these substances are in everyday life remains an open question. But whether or not one believes that human pheromones are sex attractants, as McCoy and Cutler do, there are still a number of social domains in which chemical messages could have an important effect, says McClintock.
“In animals, [pheromones] are involved very strongly in care of offspring, in recognizing members of your social group, in recognizing family members,” she says. “In thinking about what the normal function might be, we know from the animal work that we need to think broadly in social terms and that the same compound might serve differently in different contexts.
“The field of physiological or biopsychology typically looks at how biology causes changes in behavior,” she adds. “What we’re trying to do is say that that’s a very reductionist approach, and what is really
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