Marlise Hofer is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Victoria (UVic). This research is particularly relevant given that it is one of the first studies to examine how body odor impacts perceptions of social status. The study recruited 797 participants who rated a series of scent samples. This underscores the strong influence that chemical signals have on social perceptions and interactions.
Hofer’s study will look to create a rigorous, evidence-based intervention that would help people who suffer from smell disorders. She is especially interested in discerning fine shades of meaning in body scent. With this understanding, she seeks to empower people to re-establish connections between food, community, and pleasure. Yet the impact of her research is in her interdisciplinary work to forward the understanding that human social communication via scent is common.
In her research, Hofer found that testosterone levels detected in body odor relate closely to how individuals perceive the social status of others. “We examined whether scent cues associated with levels of circulating testosterone impact people’s social status judgments,” she stated. Both male and female participants rated men with greater testosterone levels as more dominant. This trend was reflected in the study’s findings.
Even when controlling for confounding factors with a regression analysis, confirming that the relationship between body odor and social standing was still significant. According to Hofer, “This relationship remained significant after controlling for potential confounding factors.” Her research opens an exciting door to re-evaluate older studies with a new lens. It investigates the ways in which humans wield dominance and prestige strategies to claim and preserve their social status.
Chemical signaling, considered by many the most important and diverse means of communication on the planet, is another key component in this paper. Hofer elaborated, “Research reveals that scent plays an important role in human communication—of fear, sickness, safety, attraction, and personality traits such as dominance and neuroticism.” She emphasizes that although sight and sound are often regarded as primary social senses, smell conveys subtle yet meaningful information about others.
In a follow-up study, Hofer recruited 76 male students, and as in the previous research, they provided a saliva sample to measure testosterone levels. These interesting, complicated, but powerful findings lend further support to her overarching hypothesis—that our bodily scents profoundly shape social perceptions. She stated, “We think this is the first study to directly examine whether humans use scent cues related to circulating testosterone levels in the formation of social status judgments.”
Hofer’s innovative research opens up a wealth of knowledge on social communication through scent. These contributions make important strides in building a growing body of work in this space. Her findings have been documented in a study published with a DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106752. The academic community and the federal agencies involved are watching very carefully to understand the implications of these findings. A blog post explaining this same concept went live on November 13, 2025.