Do a Google search on how to get your best body and you’ll be inundated with pages of training tips. For those who want to take that same, proactive approach to creating your best relationship, I have your “exercise regimen” below. 1. Do the things you did the first year you were dating. As the months and years roll on, we tend to slink into our proverbial sweatpants and get lazy in our relationship. We lose our patience, gentleness, thoughtfulness, understanding and the general effort we once made toward our mate. Think back to the first year of your relationship and write down all the things you used to do for your partner. Now start doing them again. 2. Ask for what you want. Over time, we assume that our partner knows us so well that we don’t need to ask for what we want. What happens when we make this assumption? Expectations are set and just as quickly, they get deflated. Those unmet expectations can leave us questioning the viability of our partnership...
Are bearded men good with babies? Are beards attractive to women? In a fight, do beards help or hinder?
If you’re having trouble telling men from women, here’s a clue. Men are the ones with hair sprouting from their faces (alright more hair sprouting from their faces).
Some men attempt to cover up the effect of all those androgens by shaving off their beards. Others prefer to send out manly signals in all directions (well, either that or they can’t be bothered to shave).
Who is right? What signal does the beard really send? Here are four very important beard-related facts that every man, woman and child should know.
1. Beards are attractive…or are they?
Whether or not beards are attractive to women is a big area of controversy in beard-related psychological research. Some studies find that bearded men are more attractive to women than the clean-shaven, others not (e.g. Reed & Blunk, 1990; Muscarella & Cunningham, 1996).
The most recent research goes against both beards and being clean-shaven and is starting to show the benefits of stubble.
But do women prefer light stubble or heavy stubble? The jury is still out, with one study suggesting light stubble (Neave & Shields, 2008) and another heavy stubble (Dixson & Brooks, 2013).
Just a matter of fashion? Well, probably best for men to cover all bases by letting it grow through light to heavy stubble and into a full beard. See what effect it has on the women in your life and adjust to taste.
It’s a social psychological experiment that’s easy to do and saves precious moments in the morning.
2. Beards increase age, social status and aggressiveness.
Dixson and Vasey (2012) found that (European) women from New Zealand and Samoan Polynesians both thought that men with beards looked older and that they looked of higher social status.
On top of this, when men look angry and have a beard, they look even more angry than clean-shaven men.
Why not test this out by poking a bearded man with a stick. How angry does he look? Make sure to note down your results before being knocked unconscious. Science is important.
3. Bearded men are good with babies…
…or at least that’s women’s perception according to Dixson and Vasey (2012). This is a little mysterious given that beards are associated with masculinity and very masculine men are, on average, less likely to be good long-term bets.
But perhaps the beard as ‘good-daddy-signal’ operates through other variables. Because men with beards look older and of higher social status, they are more likely to be able to provide for their offspring.
Or it could be, as Dixson and Vasey (2012) say, that it’s because they used pictures of bearded men who were smiling and this is a strangely potent combination.
Like a cage fighter baking a cake.
Or a fireman writing a poem.
You get the picture.
4. Beards are a disadvantage in a fight.
Finally, let’s take an evolutionary perspective on the beard. What signal does it send? Is it costly to produce in some way and therefore an ancient signal of good genes? Perhaps.
Like a lion’s mane, beards may be a way of showing off. Since one man can easily grab another’s beard in a fight, they could be a disadvantage. So, any man with a long beard is saying: “I’m so good in a fight that even grabbing on to this beard won’t help you!”
I am not totally convinced by this argument, although the thought of men fighting by grabbing each other’s beards is inherently funny. You really don’t see enough beard-fights in movies nowadays do you?)
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