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Liverpool, UK (pte035/14.07.2005/14:31) - Research done by scientists from the University of Liverpool, UK http://www.liv.ac.uk/www/evolpsyc/roberts.html , shows that while previous findings show scent to be more important than the visual in choosing a mate, the opposite is now true.
Previous research on smell suggests that humans prefer odours of potential partners who are not genetically similar. But now it seems that women prefer visual attractiveness over scent.
Craig Roberts and his team investigated the links between preference of mate and the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) - the huge molecule on cells, unique to each individual, which helps our immune systems to distinguish native from alien cells.
In order to avoid the dangers of inbreeding and maximise genetic potential in offspring, so the theory goes, we select partners who have different MHC to our own. In this way we make the most of the possibility that one parent's genes compensates for the faulty ones in the other. It still not known, however, how senses pick up the subliminal messages.
The study involved 92 women and 75 men, whose diverse MHC was recorded through analysis of DNA through blood samples. Each woman then had to rate photos of six men, three of whom had different MHC.
The women preferred men with similar MHC but who pleased them visually. The women's preference applied to a hypothetical long- and short-term relationship, but was strongest for potential long-term relationships.
These results seem to contradict those that apply to smell, but the researchers say that a process of 'filtering' takes place on two levels: the first, a facial likeness in order to pick someone who is not too distantly related and the second, one based on smell, to avoid in-breeding.
Claus Wedekind, whose research provides the strongest evidence that humans and mice prefer mates with different MHC on smell alone, says: "It is a plausible explanation... It could be explained by a desire for cultural 'sameness', but you could build up 20 or more equally plausible scenarios to explain it."
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