http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... riage.html
I always wondered how facial hair fit into attractiveness, because it certainly had to have been sexually selected at some point in our evolution. This study makes a lot of sense to me and I have heard pick up guys in interviews comment on facial hair. I know Paul Janka said he never did pick up clean shaven because he found women liked to touch his face a lot more, so he clearly found something in his experience of sleeping with 140 women as he said in the interview, and this study seems to back that up.
Quote:
The researchers carried out the study using computer technology to alter pictures of 15 men’s faces so that they displayed different degrees of hairiness. Five levels of facial hair were used - clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble, light beard and full beard.
The pictures were shown to 76 women who were asked to rate them for masculinity, aggression, dominance, attractiveness, age, and social maturity. They were also asked how desirable each man would be as a short-term or long-term partner. Faces with full beards were judged to be the most masculine, aggressive and socially mature. They were also thought to look five years older.
They were rated the least attractive and the worst choice for a short-term relationship. Men with light beards were considered the most dominant. Those with light stubble were rated the most attractive and as the ideal romantic partner for the short or long term. Clean-shaven men finished bottom for masculinity, dominance, aggression, and social maturity, and they were the least favoured choice as a long-term partner. They came second-to-last for attractiveness.
"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