Beard-ology: Fascinating Psychology of Male Facial Follicles

When we think of Charles Darwin, what comes to mind? Natural selection. The Galapagos Islands. And if we are picturing him, he has a rather impressive beard.

It turns out that among the many puzzles of biology that Darwin tried to solve was why human males have the propensity to grow beards. In “The Descent of Man” (1871), Darwin speculated that beards may not directly enhance survival in contrast to claims from a recent study suggesting that facial hair’s function may be to absorb some of the impact of getting punched (Beseris et al., 2020). Instead, Darwin argued that beards might be considered an “ornament,” much like a male peacock’s bright tale feathers.

In this line of thinking, facial hair made our male ancestors more attractive to the opposite sex. Thus, genes that made men more hirsute were more likely to be passed on. A process known as sexual selection. Sometimes, but not always, sexual selection works to amplify characteristics that enhance fitness in some other way, i.e., upping the odds of survival or success in competition. Or that signal other underlying traits, like good health or intelligence, that have important implications for the fitness of any potential offspring.

Does the Beard Make the Maccn?

But does facial hair actually make men more appealing? And what other traits might a beard provide clues to? If sexual selection did indeed favor more facial hair, then we might expect women to find bearded men more attractive. The first empirical tests of this prediction didn’t come until the late 1960s, nearly a century after Darwin put it forth. Results were mixed, with some studies finding that men with beards were rated as more attractive and others that clean-shaven men were viewed as more handsome.

One limitation of those early studies as that they tended to compare male targets who either had full beards or no facial hair. But of course, there’s a greater range in real-life. A 2013 study conducted in Australia (Dixon & Brooks, 2013) had women and men rate the attractiveness of male faces that were digitally manipulated to have varying amounts of beard hair (clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble, full beard). Women tended to rate faces with heavy stubble as the most attractive. Interestingly, men tended to think that full beards, heavy stubble, or clean-shaven looks were more attractive than light stubble, suggesting a bit of a disconnect between what the women were looking for and what men imagined they might be. Importantly, all participants identified as heterosexual, removing the possibility that this sex difference might be in part explained by differing desires of gay men and straight women.

But other findings suggest the relationship between facial hair and attractiveness may not be so clear. A team led by Peter Gray (2020) conducted a similar experiment with participants from the U.S. and India. Here, they found that in both countries, clean-shaven male faces were viewed as most attractive to potential partners, and on average, both women and men shared this view. And in another study, this time sampling women from New Zealand and Samoa, clean-shaven male faces were rated as more attractive than male faces with full beards (Dixson & Vasey, 2012).

What Else Might a Beard Signal?

Despite these discrepancies, the picture of what other traits a beard may signal appears more consistent. For example, Dixson and Brooks (2013) found that with increasing facial hair came higher ratings of masculinity among the Australian participants that made up their sample. Among American participants, although not Indian ones, Gray’s team found more facial hair was linked to greater perceived physical strength, and in both samples in their study, facial hair was negatively associated with ratings of friendliness. Taken together, this suggests that beards may provide cues to physical formidability. And consistent with that idea, a study published in May, this time with participants from Poland, found that men with largerbeards reported greater self-protection motivation (Moro et al., 2024). Interestingly, when researchers examined how motivated men were to enhance their facial hair, they found that this was positively linked to feelings of physical inadequacy as higher scores on a measure of intrasexual competition. Further, another study found that when men make facial displays of anger, beards enhance their perceived aggressiveness significantly (Dixson & Vasey, 2012). So, a beard might be a way to send a signal. Don’t mess me with me!

But beards may also send another type of signal. That a man is dad material. Numerous studies and the experience of millions of adolescents have shown that heavy facial hair increases a male’s perceived age. Perhaps more directly relevant to the question of dad-ness, though, Dixson and Brooks (2013) discovered that men with full beards were seen to have more parenting skills than their less hairy counterparts. And men’s desire to enhance their facial hair is positively correlated with their motivation to care for children (Moroń et al., 2024), although men’s actual amount of facial hair was not linked to this motivation. So, although beards may be a signal of potential paternal investment, they may not be an honest one.

Conclusion

The study of beards is a growing field. But it’s clear that facial hair has a number of implications for social cognition and behavior. And like the stubble that may be starting to form on some of my readers' faces, scientists have only begun to scratch the surface.