The Whitten effect is stimulation, by male pheromones, of synchronous estrus in a female population.
[3] The Whitten effect occurs when a group of female mice are exposed to the urine produced by a male mouse.
The male’s urine contains certain volatile, or airborne, pheromones that affect the hormonal processes of the females that control their reproductive status.
[5] However, there is little evidence for a similarly functioning vomeronasal, or olfactory, system (thought to be the sensory organ that initiates the Bruce, Vandenbergh, and Whitten effects) in humans.
These differences, in putative stimulus and neural pathway (as well as species observed), stringently distinguishes the Whitten and McClintock effect, as the latter does not posit a role for male pheromones.