Here some scientific facts about hair influence:
Highest "valued" by males are women who have:
high neonate quality in the center of the face with long hair as a maturity feature at the periphery.
Least attractive are women who have:
- maturity character on the center and neonate character at the periphery.
- high neonate character with short hair.
- low neonate character and long hair.
Women hair color:
Men consider blond women to be more attractive, feminine, emotional and pleasure seeking.
Girls have blond-hair prevalent preference in primary school.
Brunettes are seen as more intelligent.
Cunningham and his colleagues (1997) regarded fair hair as a cue to neoteny; assuming that it conveys a message of young age.
Women Hair Bun:
Enhances femininity especially applying to women with less facial attractiveness or compared to short hair.
Males prefer a bun (as long hair style & sign of maturity) to short hair.
Increases the perceived age in females, compared to long hair.
Long hair:
Is perceived as:
- determined
- intelligent
- independent and healthy individual
- mature
- dominant
- feminine
Senescence features are believed to convey social maturity, a non-threatening form of dominance, and wisdom.
Long-haired women was rated high, regardless, of whether their facial attractiveness was valued high or low. Also by young adult males (Cunningham et al. 1995) and children.
Mesko and Bereczkei (2004) found that long and medium-length hairstyles had a significant, positive effect on women’s attractiveness, whereas other hairstyles (short, bun) did not significantly influence the values of physical beauty.
Males also prefer long hair and a bun (as a particular style of long hairdressing) to short hair in females, which can be interpreted as a preference for maturity features (Cunningham et al.51995, women’s self-rated health was found to correlate with the length and quality of their head hair (Hinsz, Matz, and Patience 2001).
Long and medium-length hairstyles were shown to improve the male raters’ evaluations of the female subjects’ health status; they caused larger change in the health ratings than in other attributes of attractiveness (sexiness and youthfulness) (Mesko and Bereczkei 2004)
Short hair:
Males prefer long hair and a bun (as a particular style of long hairdressing) to short hair in females, which can be interpreted as a preference for maturity features Cunningham et al. 1995
Short hair rather signals personality traits that are associated with neoteny:
- honest
- caring
- emotional
- feminine
Differences in self-assurance, independence and youth were not significant.
Male hair:
In males, graying hair and baldness may be adaptive for the bearers because they induce respect and social maturity.
Bald men were judged less attractive as romantic partners but more attractive as mentors
Facial hair signals sexual maturity and dominance, males with beards were perceived as more aggressive, older, and less appealing than those with clean-shaven faces
Full, shiny, well-kept hair may convey health and vitality.
Disheveled, unkempt hair is likely to decrease the women‘s facial attractiveness, especially their perceived health.
Cost and genes:
Cranial hair maturity character is crucial in attractiveness judgments.
The Good Genes Sexual Selection Model
The Zahavi-principle: in order for a feature to reliably signal physical attractiveness it should be costly. Since sexual displays on the face, especially estrogen- and testosterone-dependent traits, are costly – steroids are known to negatively affect immunocompetence.
Only people with good genetic conditions (e.g. heterozigosity) can afford to develop them.
Similarly, if the development and maintenance of scalp hair is costly in terms of metabolism and time allocated for its care, only a fraction of people can afford to grow healthy and long hair. Indeed, several studies have suggested that during ontogenesis hair formation is very expensive in that it shows a high growth rate and requires a high level of energetic expenditure. Since the development of long hair requires a large amount of resources from the organism, it may reliably signal a high phenotypic and genetic quality of the bearer.
Hair children:
Children value and praise long hair and children attribute positive features to it, such as:
- vitality
- power
- cheerfulness
A recent study has revealed that long-haired girls in primary school are more successful than short-haired girls and boys; they have more friends, are regarded as more popular, and considered as more attractive.
References:
Cunningham et al. 2002, Rich and Cash 1993
Baktay-Korsos 1999
Mesko and Bereczkei 2004
Cunningham et al. 5 1995,
Muscarella and Cunningham 1996
Tamas Bereczkei, Norbert Mesko Department of Psycholog,University of Pécs, Hungary
Running title: Hairstyles, facial attractiveness, evolved mate preferences
Grammer et al. 2003, Johnston et al. 2001, Thornhill and Grammer 1999
Dawber, Berker, and Wojnarowska 1998, Ebling, Dawber, and Rook 1986