Women's preferences for men's beards show no relation to their ovarian cycle phase and sex hormone levels

Abstract

According to the ovulatory shift hypothesis, women's mate preferences for male morphology indicative of competitive ability, social dominance, and/or underlying health are strongest at the peri-ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle. However, recent meta-analyses are divided on the robustness of such effects and the validity of the often-used indirect estimates of fertility and ovulation has been called into question in methodological studies. In the current study, we test whether women's preferences for men's beardedness, a cue of male sexual maturity, androgenic development and social dominance, are stronger at the peri-ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle compared to during the early follicular or the luteal phase. We also tested whether levels of estradiol, progesterone, and the estradiol to progesterone ratio at each phase were associated with facial hair preferences. Fifty-two heterosexual women completed a two-alternative forced choice preference test for clean-shaven and bearded male faces during the follicular, peri-ovulatory (validated by the surge in luteinizing hormone or the drop in estradiol levels) and luteal phases. Participants also provided for one entire menstrual cycle daily saliva samples for subsequent assaying of estradiol and progesterone. Results showed an overall preference for bearded over clean-shaven faces at each phase of the menstrual cycle. However, preferences for facial hair were not significantly different over the phases of menstrual cycle and were not significantly associated with levels of reproductive hormones. We conclude that women's preferences for men's beardedness may not be related to changes in their likelihood of conception.

The role of sex hormones and social determinants in assessment of facial attractiveness

“…During the menstrual cycle, women's preferences for masculinity in male faces, voices and behavior are subjected to changes which are the strongest in periovulatory period (9). On the other hand, recent studies showed that women's preferences for men's facial masculinity did not change over the menstrual cycle and were not associated with levels of estradiol, progesterone or luteinizing hormone (14,15).…”

“…Higher estradiol level correlated with a preference for androgen-dependent traits in men (13). On the other hand, recent studies showed that women's preferences for men's facial masculinity did not change over the menstrual cycle and were not associated with levels of estradiol, progesterone or luteinizing hormone (14,15). Interestingly, based on the assessment of photographs, single men's faces were rated by women as more masculine and thus more attractive than those of partnered men (16).…”

Ovulation, sex hormones, and women’s mating psychology

“…These studies have reported mixed results, potentially because they were generally particularly badly underpowered [34] and/or because the substantial genetic variation in mate preferences [39] There has recently been a concerted effort by many researchers to address these potentially important methodological limitations. For example, several recent large-scale, within-subject studies have investigated women's preferences for facial masculinity [40][41][42], beardedness [42,43], body masculinity [41,44], facial symmetry [41], or vocal masculinity [45] using luteinizing hormone (LH) tests and/or other hormone measures to confirm the timing and occurrence of ovulation. Notably, none of these studies observed significant effects of fertility on women's preferences for masculine or symmetric men.…”

Children's judgements of facial hair are influenced by biological development and experience

“…The clean-shaven and bearded photographs were used to construct composite stimuli using the Webmorph software package (DeBruine & Tiddeman, 2016). 189 facial landmarks were identified on each image, and composite images were created by randomly selecting five of the thirty-seven individuals and averaging shape and color information of the clean-shaven images, as well as the corresponding bearded versions of the same individuals (Dixson et al, 2018;McIntosh et al, 2017). For an example of the stimuli see Figure 1.…”