A study in Poland found that men who are more strongly motivated to enhance their social status, experience higher competition from other males, and are more stressed about their gender roles are more likely to care for their facial hair. This suggests that men might maintain beards, mustaches, or a clean-shaven look as a self-presentation strategy to enhance their standing within their social networks. The research was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
In humans, facial hair is a feature that primarily appears in men after puberty, driven by the action of male sex hormones. As a result, men typically have much more facial hair than women, making it a secondary sexual characteristic.
Many cultures hold specific views about facial hair. Some cultures practically mandate certain types of facial hair, while others prefer its removal, leading to the practice of shaving. People often use facial hair as a form of ornamentation, creating intricate designs, such as specially trimmed and shaped beards and mustaches. In some cultures, specific facial hair styles can signal social status, dominance in male-male competition, or even age, as young individuals with facial hair tend to appear older.
Studies have found that people associate facial hair with biological characteristics such as sexual maturity, age, and masculinity. A theory known as the “theory of precarious manhood” suggests that men’s self-esteem largely depends on social signals indicating that they fulfill their roles and expectations well. In line with this, men may experience gender role stress when they do not meet societal expectations or when a situation forces them to act in a feminine way. Beards and facial hair help fulfill this role by serving as a clear sign of masculinity, potentially protecting men from gender role stress.
Study author Marcin Moroń and his colleagues note that, despite the various functions that a beard or facial hair can serve, maintaining it requires additional effort. They sought to explore why some individuals are motivated to maintain facial hair, while others invest effort in shaving to remain clean-shaven. They hypothesized that motives for maintaining facial hair may stem from a desire to present oneself as a resourceful and well-organized person, or from a desire to appear older (by keeping a beard) or younger (by being clean-shaven).
The study involved 414 heterosexual men from Poland, aged between 18 and 40. The research was conducted online.
Participants were first shown four photos of a male with different lengths of facial hair and asked to indicate which of these best described their own facial hair. Following this, participants rated how likely they were to use professional beard and facial hair services, buy facial hair care products, and spend time trimming and styling their facial hair.
They then completed a series of items assessing their fundamental social motives, including self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation with a group, affiliation with friends, concern about exclusion, status-seeking, mate seeking, mate retention, kin care related to family members, and kin care related to children.
The “affiliation with a group” motive refers to the drive or desire to connect, belong, and maintain positive relationships within a social group or community. “Affiliation with friends” refers to the desire to form and maintain close, personal relationships with specific individuals. “Affiliation related to exclusion concern” is the motivation to seek connections and avoid rejection or exclusion, often driven by anxiety about being left out or marginalized from a group.
Participants also completed an assessment of intrasexual competition, which included three dimensions: envy (e.g., “I can’t stand it when I meet another man who is more attractive than I am”), jealousy (“I tend to look for negative characteristics in men who are very successful”), and superiority (“I always want to beat other men”). Additionally, they completed an assessment of gender role stress using the 15-item Masculine Gender Roles Stress Scale, which measures physical inadequacy, emotional inexpressiveness, subordination to women, intellectual inferiority, and performance failure.
The results showed that the motivation to enhance facial hair had weak associations with all social motives, all aspects of gender role stress except emotional inexpressiveness, and all three aspects of intrasexual competition. Individuals with stronger social motives, more gender role stress, and greater intrasexual competition were more motivated to invest effort in maintaining their facial hair styles.
Among the social motives, the strongest associations were with motives for affiliation with a group, affiliation with friends, concern about exclusion, and status-seeking. Physical inadequacy was the aspect of gender role stress most strongly correlated with the motivation to enhance facial hair, followed by subordination to women. Envy was the aspect of intrasexual competition most strongly associated with the motivation to enhance facial hair.
“Therefore, men may invest time, effort, and money in their facial hair appearance to enhance their social image,” the study authors concluded.
The study makes a valuable contribution to understanding the importance of facial hair care in men. However, the research was solely based on self-reports, and the measure of facial hair a person has was very limited, not capturing the diversity of possible facial hair styles. Additionally, the number of participants with actual beards was very low—only 6%. The results might differ if more extensive measures of facial hair were used and if a distinction was made between individuals with facial hair styles that require significant effort and those with styles that can be maintained with little effort.
The paper, “Motivations to Enhance One’s Facial Hair: Affiliation, Rivalry, and Stress,” was authored by Marcin Moroń, Łukasz Jach, and Peter K. Jonason.