A new study has claimed that sweating when happy can make others happy. Scientists reached at the conclusion after studying how women volunteers reacted to sweat samples from men. They found that chemical signals or chemosignals is sweat odor that can enliven others. The study was conducted by Utrecht University in Netherlands and the findings have been published in the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers had taken sweat samples from 12 men after instructing them to watch videos that altered mind states to fear or happiness. The reason behind choosing women as subjects was their ability to better detect smells and they are more sensitive to emotional signals.

The researchers noticed that different facial expressions were caused in women when exposed to sweat samples produced by men under different conditions of mind-altering experiences.

Smelling 'fear sweat' resulted in activating the women's medial frontalis, which is associated with fear. In contrast, the facial muscles of women in the study worked to produce a Duchene smile, associated with positive emotions, when exposed to happy sweat.

"We observed that exposure to body odor collected from senders of chemosignals in a happy state induced a facial expression and perceptual-processing style indicative of happiness in the receivers of those signals. Our findings suggest that not only negative affect but also a positive state (happiness) can be transferred by means of odors", researchers wrote in the journal.

Study author Gün Semin, a professor at Utrecht University, in a statement, said a simulacrum of happiness in receivers is induced after being exposed to sweat produced under happiness. This in turn induces a contagion of the emotional state.

The study was not done on a large-scale basis, therefore requires more research to confirm that smell might be able to inspire happy emotions.