Study Reveals Surprising Motives for Growing Beards

Men with facial hair are perceived as good fathers and friends

Scientists have found that men with beards have various reasons for growing it, but the main ones are status, competition, and caring for the family.

Photo: unsplash.com < span itemprop="width" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/QuantitativeValue">

Over the past decade, beards have featured prominently in men's fashion. What was considered a temporary revival among hipsters in the late 2000s has now become an integral feature of many men around the world. But regardless of fashion and trends, those who wear beards have different motives for growing and maintaining them. New research has shown that having a beard may correlate with certain social motives to gain and enhance status, as well as to signal commitment to caring for the family.

Facial hair in humans is sexually dimorphic, meaning it is more pronounced in men than in women. Given that humans, like other primates, are social creatures that operate in groups of varying sizes with multi-level social organization, a beard can signal status among men as well as increase its attractiveness to women. Having a beard, for example, can help indicate a person's age, dominance, and place in a group. Men may deliberately choose a beard shape as part of their self-promotion strategy.

But this type of grooming has its costs, both financially (the men's cosmetics industry continues to get more expensive) and in terms of time and effort.

The question of psychological factors influencing the decision to grow a beard has interested researchers from the University of Silesia in Poland and the University of Padua in Italy.

«Studies conducted so far have shown that people attribute different hair types to men. faces different characteristics associated with fundamental social motives,” — The scientists write in their study. However, the researchers found mixed results and said more research on the topic is needed “to clarify this ambiguity.”

For example, people consider bearded men to be healthier and better fighters. Respondents also perceive them as more trustworthy and friendly, which may correspond to affiliative social interests. But bearded men can also be seen as more aggressive and dominant, which may indicate status-seeking motives. Additionally, research has shown that people believe that men with facial hair have greater fathering potential, indicating family-care motives.

“We hypothesized that men's desire to realize fundamental social motives may manifest themselves in increased interest in improving facial hair growth,— explains the research team. — Thus, we predicted positive correlations between motivation to improve facial hair growth and orientation toward such fundamental social motives as self-protection, status seeking, mate seeking, and child-related caregiving.

The study involved 414 men aged 18 to 40 years. Participants provided information about their beards and completed questionnaires that measured four factors: motivation to improve hair, fundamental social motives, gender role significance, and intragender competition (between other men).

Motivation to improve the appearance of the beard was measured by questions about respondents' willingness to use professional grooming services, purchase grooming products, and spend time on trimming and styling their beard. To assess the participants' underlying social motives, they were asked to rate the importance of such things as self-protection, disease prevention, relationships with friends, motives for choosing a partner, etc.

Participants' levels of gender role consciousness were measured using five subscales that describe situations related to physical inadequacy (with statements such as «Not being able to find a sexual partner,» subordination to women («Being with a woman who is more successful than you»). ), intellectual disability («Working with people who seem more ambitious than you») and failure at work («Inability to express yourself sexually»). Participants were asked to rate how stressful they found these situations.

Intrasexual competition was measured using a question-answer scale that examined participants' levels of envy (“I can't stand it when I meet another man who is more attractive than me,” jealousy (“I look for negative traits in successful men”), and superiority (“I always want to outdo other men/women.”)

Overall, the team found that men with more facial hair were more likely to value staying in long-term relationships and were more interested in caring for their family than those with less facial hair.

“Previous results have shown that observers tend to perceive bearded men as having better parenting skills,” the team explains. “Therefore, having a full beard may be used by men to signal to others that their social motivations are shifting from a focus on the mating market to a focus on long-term romantic relationships and family.” The scientists also found that men who are motivated to improve and enhance their beards also position themselves as valuable and reliable allies and friends.

However, the study is not without its limitations. The authors argue that future research could pay more attention to the diversity of different beard types and how men shape them. The study also relied on self-report measures, meaning respondents could report their conscious beliefs rather than their actual motivations.

However, this study is the first to look at the motivations for growing beards and provides new insights into why beards remain fashionable today.