Can You Smell Fear on a Person I @jackneel
In this short presentation Vanessa Van Edwards describes a laboratory study that compared sweat collected from two groups of participants: one group exercised on a treadmill while wearing sweatsuits, and another group performed a first‑time sky‑diving jump while also wearing sweatsuits. The sweat samples were then presented to naïve participants inside an fMRI scanner. When participants smelled the sky‑diving sweat, brain regions associated with fear were activated, whereas the treadmill sweat produced no such activation. Van Edwards interprets the result as evidence that fear triggers the release of a chemical signal—potentially a pheromone or stress hormones such as norepinephrine, adrenaline, or cortisol—that can be detected by others through smell. She emphasizes that this olfactory cue makes fear socially contagious, warning listeners to be mindful of how negative emotions can spread.
