Men: Want a Date? Take a Break from Shaving this Movember

This month is “Movember,” an international movement to raise awareness about men’s health, particularly prostate and testicular cancer. Men participating in “Movember” grow moustaches and raise money to fund cancer education and research.¹ Yet, Movember may have an added benefit for relationships: women rate men with a full beard as more masculine, socially mature, dominant, and aggressive than they rate clean-shaven men. However, men with light stubble fare best on ratings of attractiveness and desirability for short-term and long-term relationships.² Historically, men tend to grow facial hair during years that competition for mates is more intense (for example, moustaches were particularly popular in the early 1900s, based on images in the Illustrated London News),³ suggesting that facial hair fashion trends are attuned to the effect facial hair has on women’s judgments.

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The Anatomy of a Hot Dad

When we first opened the e-mail from iVillage.com, with “2^nd Annual Hot Dads Contest” in the subject line, we (as fathers) couldn’t help but be flattered. Reality quickly kicked in, however, when we read the actual message and learned that iVillage was hoping that ScienceOfRelationships.com could spread the word about their Hot Dads contest (still flattering, but not quite so ego-boosting). After dusting off our egos, we did what any good relationship scientist would do: we began to wonder what makes a “Hot Dad” hot? In other words, when iVillage.com readers comb through the hundreds of photos of men on the site, how are they judging relative dad-hotness?

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Beer Goggles: They're For Real

Imagine a world where videos combining science, beer, and relationships were popular on the Internet. Well, a recent video from the BBC describing research on the so-called “beer-goggles effect” makes this world a reality. For you teetotalers, beer-goggles refers to the belief that intoxicated individuals find members of the opposite sex to be more attractive, most likely because alcohol lowers inhibitions, thus resulting in lowered minimal acceptable standards for a potential (short-term) mate. Put another way, alcohol may increase the number of people we find to be attractive, which increases our chances of finding a partner (at least that night).   

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The Attractiveness Stereotype and Barney’s “Crazy-Hot” Scale

Like it or not, one of the most influential factors in romantic attraction is physical attractiveness. That’s right, hotness! While some may denounce or shy away from this fact for fear of sounding superficial, the dirty little secret is that we’re all subject to the “beautiful is good” belief. Psychologists’ refer to this beauty bias as the “attractiveness stereotype,” and for decades they’ve shown that people have a tendency to assume that those who are physically attractive are not only desirable because they’re hot, but also because they are believed to possess a number of other socially desirable traits.

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Are You Hot or Not?

Let’s face it. Some of us are physically attractive. Others are…well…not so much. Logic tells us that we can’t all be above average in attractiveness. So how do you know if you are physically attractive or not? Who should you ask? Well, the answer to that question lies in the kind of answer you want. Do you want the truth, or would you rather just feel good about yourself? (Unfortunately, these aren’t always the same thing.)

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Oxytocin Takes the Ass out of Masculinity

We’ve written before about the types of faces women find attractive (see here and here). In addition to those studies, one of the more well-known findings in the facial attractiveness literature is that women show a preference for more masculine faces when they are ovulating, but actually tend to prefer less masculine, or more feminized, faces when they are not likely to conceive a child. Why the shift in preference?

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Dads Influence Who Their Daughters Find Attractive

Fathers’ Day is all about honoring dads. Thus, we’ve decided to showcase research that demonstrates just how influential a good dad can be. A recent study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior looked at the types of male and female faces young adult women find more attractive as a function of their relationships with their parents.1

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Suntans and Attractiveness: To Tan or Not To Tan?

With summer here, your plans for vacation likely involved spending some time in the sun. But are you going to lather yourself in SPF-100 sun block, or embrace the rays in hopes of achieving a deep brown tan like Snooki or Pauly D from the Jersey Shore?

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Conan’s Beard: To Shave or Not To Shave?

Before Conan O’Brien allows Will Ferrell to shave his beard, perhaps he should know that research shows that females rate males with a full beard as more attractive, masculine, socially mature, dominant, and aggressive than clean-shaven men. Conan should tell Will Ferrell to leave his “la raza” at home.

Neave, N., & Shields, K. (2008). The effects of facial hair manipulation on female perceptions of attractiveness, masculinity, and dominance in male faces. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(5), 373-377. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.05.007