Blog Post #3 Phermones

    Being with my female friends for an extended period of time, or even now being in household with my sister and mother our menstruation cycles have been in sync. I remember always being so excited when me and my friends would all be in sync when I was younger and after reading chapter 4 I know realize there is scientific proof behind this thanks to Martha McClintock. 

    McClintock thought that synchronization in women occurs by repeated exposure to other women’s pheromones could induce menstrual entrainment across the women, even without their awareness. In  1998 with McCLintock and her colleague Kathleen Stern conducted a study where they took samples of underarm sweat (human pheromone secretors) of women and applied it to the upper lip of 20 other women before and during ovulation and the results showed that when the women were given the ovulation sweat, their cycles lengthened by two days. When, instead, the recipients were given the preovulation sweat, their cycles shortened by two days. This study is considered one of the more rigorous demonstrations of how sweat, and the putative pheromones it contains, can influence menstrual cycle timing.