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Researchers have found that women are more attracted to men with stubble than those with clean-shaven faces or full beards, when seeking partners for love, sex or marriage.
According to the researchers at Northumbria University, British women aged 18 to 44, who participated in the study, rated men with one-to-two days of follicular growth as tough, mature, aggressive, dominant and masculine – and as the best romantic partners, either for a fling or a long-term relationships.
The explanation for the preference is not clear, but experts in human evolution say that that facial hair may be a sign of aggression, because it boosts the apparent size of the lower jaw, emphasising the teeth as weapons.
According to the researchers, stubbly men offer women the best compromise — not too strongly masculine, but mature and with the potential to grow a full beard.
Lead researcher, Dr Nick Neave said:
The results were very clear cut, the face that had the light stubble was thought to be much more attractive, much sexier.
It was preferred for a short-term partner, it was preferred for a long-term partner.
In a preliminary test, shaven male faces were rated by women for attractiveness. And, from these, the researchers selected only average-looking subjects (men who were neither especially handsome nor ugly), from those results of that study.
Using advanced computer software, each of the fifteen pictures of men’s faces was altered to give the appearance of five different facial-hair appearances: clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble, light beard and full beard.
The pictures were then shown to 76 women who were asked to rate them for masculinity, aggression, dominance, attractiveness, age, and social maturity. They were also asked to note how desirable each man would be as a short-term or long-term partner.
After evaluating the various degrees of hairiness of the subjects, the majority of women agreed light stubble was most appealing, whilst men who were clean-shaven or fully beard were least appealing. Clean-shaven men were dismissed as lacking social maturity and masculinity, while faces with full beards were judged to be the most masculine and socially mature. However, full beards were also viewed as too aggressive, thought to look about five years older, were less attractive and overly dominant.
Writing in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the researchers conclude:
Facial hair, or beardedness, is a powerful sociosexual signal, and an obvious biological marker of sexual maturity.
Facial hair may have been sexually selected by females on the basis of associated male success, despite its threatening appearance. Clean-shaven faces therefore may suggest appeasement, as well as being an obvious sign of sexual immaturity.
Increasing levels of facial hair were associated with increased perceptions of aggression, in that bearded faces were perceived as being the most aggressive, whilst clean-shaven faces were rated as being the least aggressive. And as facial hair increased in a linear fashion, so did female ratings of masculinity and dominance.
In desirability for a short-term relationship, a female preference for male faces with stubble or light beard was found, with clean-shaven and fully bearded faces being the least preferred. This indicates that females are not selecting faces displaying relatively high or low masculinity, but are rather preferring males who are clearly mature (post-pubertal) but not too masculinised. The same pattern was found for preferences for a long-term relationship.
The researchers now want to extend their study internationally; and Dr Neave was quoted as saying:
Preference for facial hair is clearly a cultural thing, but I think the underlying mechanism is that it signals masculinity, it starts off very wispy and very pathetic, really, and then gets much thicker and finally, with older people, gets scraggy. So it’s a sign of sexual maturity.
There are large cultural differences in perceptions of facial hair, and we are hoping to expand on this research by conducting a large-scale study assessing female perceptions of male facial hair in different in as many countries as possible.
Females seem to have a preference for faces that are masculine, but not too masculine, they don’t want these hulking cavemen, yet they also don’t want faces that are too immature.
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Posted by Jonathan in Sociobiology, Sociology