Why beards are manly

Women who were interested in a fling liked the scruffy look, showing a high preference for men with light and heavy stubble and little interest in the clean-shaved baby-faced look.

But for women searching for someone to settle down with, the longer the beard the better. This group rated men with heavy stubble or full beards the highest. Overall, women found men with heavy stubble the sexiest and clean-shaven men the least desirable. Sincerity, competence, courageousness, self-confidence and social maturity are just some examples. Gay men also find beards attractive. In a paper also published in Evolution and Human Behavior, Dixson and his coauthor found that ratings of masculinity and social dominance rise linearly with facial hair, but attractiveness makes a U shape, indicating a cutoff at which you can have too much beard and it becomes unattractive.

According to the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, a growing number of men are seeking hair transplants to create a beard, with nearly men in Canada undergoing the procedure in Those attracted to men with beards see them as a sign of physical and social dominance, but those opposed to them are repelled by worries they might contain lice or fleas.

Fears of parasites and pests were highest among the women adamant on clean-shaven faces. The findings come from interviews with 1, women aged between 18 and 70, who were presented with 30 photos of three men. Men with full beards and strong jawlines and cheek bones were viewed as most attractive for both short and long term relationships. They placed facial masculinity above more feminine faces. Researchers at the University of Queensland, led by PhD student Tessa Clarkson, said this could be seen as a sign of dominance, and that bold facial features can mask unattractive ones.

Through their modeling, the researchers were able to rule out differences in perceived age, attractiveness and likability as alternative explanations for their results. The beard-effect occurs across sales industries and contexts in-person and online. Researchers have therefore suggested that a second type of sexual selection may hold the answer.

You also have to compete with the same sex for mating opportunities. Despite this, a number of studies have suggested that both men and women perceive men with beards as older , stronger and more aggressive than others. And dominant men can get more mating opportunities by intimidating rivals to stand aside. This is something that holds true both in modern times and throughout human history. A study by the appropriately-named Nigel Barber linked British facial hair fashions between and to the ratio of men to women in the marriage market.

It found that in times with a greater proportion of single men competing for fewer women, beards and moustaches became more fashionable.