A
team of British scientists said their new study shows Freud was
right after all -- men and women are attracted to people who remind
them of their parents. Or at least smell like them.
Researchers at the Museum of Science and Discovery, a think tank
in the central England city of Birmingham, said both men and women
follow their noses when seeking out a mate.
The study involved a highly scientific means of assessing attraction:
women smelled sweaty T-shirts, and tended to prefer those worn
by men with genes similar to those of their fathers.
"In choosing a partner we are subconsciously assessing their
evolutionary fitness to be a mother of children or father provider
and protector," said Dr George Forster, adviser to the think
tank.
"Men are attracted to women because they smell like their
mothers" and for the women it's the reverse, he said of the
results.
"This is a pretty biological or evolutionary view. Our environment
moulds our individual preferences but there is increasing evidence
that our genes play an important part," he said.
People tend to prefer others with "a somewhat similar physical
and psychological profile to our own," Forster said.
(Agencies)