http://www.pourlascience.fr/ewb_pages/a/actualite-l-amour-est-dans-le-poil-31304.php

Messieurs, faut-il vous laisser pousser la barbe pour être plus séduisant ? Une étude américaine suggère que les femmes trouvent plus attirant un homme avec une bonne barbe de trois jours, mais pas une petite barbe de trois jours - plutôt un début de toison plus proche d’une semaine -, pensez à Ben Affleck dans Argo, récemment couronné aux Oscars.

Certains pourront pousser l’expérience jusqu’à la vraie barbe, selon leurs objectifs : lorsqu’il s’agit d’un flirt, les femmes sont plus attirées par une barbe de trois jours, et pour une relation durable avec enfants à la clé, elles semblent favoriser une barbe de Mathusalem. Les barbus, apparemment, sont considérés comme de bons candidats à la paternité, et les femmes y sont plus sensibles, d’après l’étude, lorsqu’elles sont en période de fertilité maximale, au milieu de leur cycle. A chacun sa barbe, à chacun ses amours.

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2813%2900022-6/abstract

The role of facial hair in women's perceptions of men's attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities

Facial hair strongly influences people's judgments of men's socio-sexual attributes. However, the nature of these judgments is often contradictory. The levels of intermediate facial hair growth presented to raters and the stage of female raters' menstrual cycles might have influenced past findings. We quantified men's and women's judgments of attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities for photographs of men who were clean-shaven, lightly or heavily stubbled and fully bearded. We also tested the effect of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive use on women's ratings. Women judged faces with heavy stubble as most attractive and heavy beards, light stubble and clean-shaven faces as similarly less attractive. In contrast, men rated full beards and heavy stubble as most attractive, followed closely by clean-shaven and light stubble as least attractive. Men and women rated full beards highest for parenting ability and healthiness. Masculinity ratings increased linearly as facial hair increased, and this effect was more pronounced in women in the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, although attractiveness ratings did not differ according to fertility. Our findings confirm that beardedness affects judgments of male socio-sexual attributes and suggest that an intermediate level of beardedness is most attractive while full-bearded men may be perceived as better fathers who could protect and invest in offspring.