‘New research is flying in the face of many popular and not-so-forgiving views about ‘human nature.’ The research indicates there is an olfactory-based, evolutionary mechanism built into the human genome/soul to feel empathy for the anxiety/suffering of others.

In a fascinating study entitled “Induction of empathy by the smell of anxiety,” published in the journal of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) in 2009, researchers discovered:

“The chemosensory perception of human anxiety seems to automatically recruit empathy-related resources.” Smelling chemical signals from the sweat of anxious subjects elicited an empathic response, even when the smell was below the threshold of consciousness in half the subjects.’