Men with beards ‘best for long-term relationships’ - study

Adam Boult 18 September 2016 • 11:37am

A beardy man — Marriage material? Credit: EVA

Men with full beards are viewed as being more attractive for long-term relationships, according to a study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Men with stubble, on the other hand, are viewed as a better bet among women looking for a short-term fling.

Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia asked 8,520 women to look at a number of photos of men, and provide ratings for physical attractiveness.

The images were manipulated so the men ran the full gamut of facial hair-length, from clean-shaven to full beard. Features such as cheekbones and jawlines were also manipulated to make their appearance more or less masculine.

Participants in the study rated feminine faces as being less attractive than unmanipulated faces when both were clean-shaven. Faces with extremely masculine or extremely feminine features were judged as being the least attractive.

The faces with stubble were rated most attractive overall, particularly for short-term flings, while fully bearded faces were judged as more attractive for long-term relationships.

Dr Barnaby Dixson, lead researcher, writing in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, said: “Our findings suggest that beardedness may be attractive when judging long-term relationships as a signal of intrasexual formidability and the potential to provide direct benefits to females.

“Relationship context also had effects on ratings, with facial hair enhancing long-term, and not short-term, attractiveness.”

A 2008 study at Northumbria University found that women were more attracted to men with stubble than those with clean-shaven faces or full beards.

"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,” the researchers in that study wrote.

“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."

The Northumbria University study concluded: “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."