Your Beard Secretly Sends This Signal To Other People

Body hair is a hot topic of debate in the modern world. Some find it attractive, and others don't. When it comes to beards, in particular, a 2020 study conducted by the University of Queensland found that women generally preferred men with masculine features, including facial hair. While each woman is different, some consider heavy stubble to be the most attractive type of facial hair, while others prefer a heavier beard. That said, facial hair is so much more than a physical attribute. Beards can say a lot about a person and can even help communicate aspects of basic human behavior, namely aggression and social status.

Researchers have proposed several theories to explain the purpose of beard growth in humans following the overall reduction in body hair compared to our primate ancestors. Some experts posit that the beard evolved as a means to regulate internal temperature, while others suggest that it helps protect against ultra-violet (UV) exposure, as evidenced by a 2006 study published in Cancer Causes & Control. However, it's more likely that beards evolved through sexual selection, according to a 2012 study published in Behavioral Ecology, as a way to signal threat, status, and dominance.

Growing a beard is more than an aesthetic enhancement to one's physical appearance. Yes, your beard can say a lot about your desirability as a partner, but it also acts as a form of facial communication used to signal behavior to other men. For instance, the 2012 study found that beards play a role in non-verbal communication and, from an evolutionary perspective, signal aggression toward other males. Researchers found that when male participants were shown photos of men with angry facial expressions — one with a full beard and the other clean-shaven — the participants perceived the bearded men to be more aggressive.

Therefore, researchers suspect that beards emphasize angry facial expressions, so growing facial hair is akin to employing an intimidation tactic to appear more threatening and aggressive to other men. In action, this might have been useful for deterring rival males from competing with them. A 2016 study published in Evolution and Human Behavior also suggests that beards increase the way other males perceive jaw size and face length, which would make threatening facial expressions and behaviors appear more intimidating.

In addition to examining how beards affect perceptions of competition, the group of experts involved in the 2012 study also found that people associate bearded men with higher social status and dominance than clean-shaven men. If you look at characters within popular media, such as Gandalf from "The Lord of the Rings" and Obi Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," there's a clear pattern where we see various wise and respected men who all happen to sport full beards. The other characters in these stories look up to the bearded men for guidance and support, and the study suggests that this unconscious association is rooted in the beard's evolutionary purpose.

Although a greater number of men associated bearded faces with social status than women, the results demonstrate that, as a whole, people perceive bearded men as being more dominant than those without beards. Similar findings appear in a 2008 study published in Personality and Individual Differences, which found that women consider men with full beards more masculine and socially mature. Ultimately, this beard-centric research suggests that growing facial hair not only augments your social status but also makes you appear more threatening to others. Today, the need to communicate aggression and dominance within social settings isn't as relevant and certainly isn't the most attractive trait a man can have, but it might still score you brownie points on the dating scene.