Sniffing a woman's tears reduces aggression in men.
Female tears reduce aggression in men
Humans and dogs are the only species that shed tears when overcome with emotion and experts at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have found that they contain social signals that act as a "chemical blanket" to protect the person weeping.
A series of experiments saw men exposed to either women's emotional tears or saline - without knowing what they were sniffing - before being asked to play a game involving revenge-seeking behaviour in one player towards another.
It was found that after men sniffed women's tears, their revenge-seeking aggression during the game dropped by almost half - 44 per cent.
Professor Noam Sobel, of Weizmann's Brain Science Department, said: "We've shown that tears activate olfactory receptors and that they alter aggression-related brain circuits, significantly reducing aggressive behaviour.
"These findings suggest that tears are a chemical blanket offering protection against aggression - and that this effect is common to rodents and humans, and perhaps to other mammals as well."