Smelly people get more sympathy, according to a new study by University KU Leuven.
"Smelly cat! smelly caaaat!...what are they feeding you"
In the popular F.R.I.E.N.D.S song, smelly cat was always being fed by someone. But looks like, the sympathy is not limited to smelly cat. Smelly people also receive more help from others just out of sympathy, a latest study suggests.
According to researchers at University KU Leuven in Belgium, people sympathize with individuals with bad body odor only to show kindness towards them.
For the study, the researchers conducted three tests to understand the kind of feelings bad body odor evoked.
In the first test, the participants were told to smell a T-shirt that was sprayed with human sweat, beer and other bad odors. These participants were asked to imagine that the T-shirt belonged to a person in their office. The researchers then asked them to report their feelings toward the person.
The study authors found that the participants empathized with the people more after smelling the stinky T-shirt.
For the second test, the authors told the participants to finish a maze alone. Later, the participants were asked to complete another maze while being seated beside a person either wearing a neutral T-shirt or a smelly one.
The researchers then put the participants in a third room and were asked to divide 11 credits among themselves and person wearing the T-shirt. People who got more credits had higher chances of winning free movie tickets.
The participants gave more credits to the people who wore smelly T-shirts.
The authors said the research "showed that there are situations in which a person's unpleasant body odor increases others' helping behaviors toward this person".
The researchers, after the third trial, concluded that participants extended a helping hand to those who were not responsible for their body odor but were less helpful to those responsible for their body odor.
"Scents are omnipresent in our daily world and they are of great importance as represented by the use of perfumes or fragrances in the work environment," said lead author Jeroen Camps and colleagues, according to Daily Mail.
"Even though it has been argued that bad scents invoke negative judgments, we argued and demonstrated that a bad body odor elicits feelings of pity in others and increases prosocial behavior," he added.
