Bearded men more likely to maintain long-term relationships

Full bearded men have a higher tendency to maintain long-term relationship than clean-shaven men.

This conclusion was made in a research published in the journal of evolutionary biology.

Beards are judged as more attractive than clean-shaven faces for long-term relationships because beards may signal men’s age and masculine social dominance.

The research also asserts that masculine faces are judged as more attractive for short-term relationships over less masculine faces.

The masculine features include a pronounced brow ridge and a more robust jawline.

In the course of the study, 8520 women were asked to rate the stimuli for male overall physical attractiveness for a short-term or a long-term relationship.

The women were to choose from the computer graphic manipulation used to morph male faces varying in facial hair from clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble and full beards.

Results showed that masculinised and feminised faces were found less attractive than unmanipulated faces.

“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.

“More generally, our results hint at a divergence of signalling function, which may result in a subtle trade-off in women’s preferences, for two highly sexually dimorphic androgen-dependent facial traits.”

The research reveals that women prefer to go for full-bearded men rather than clean-shaven men.