Are Preferences for Women’s Hair Color Frequency-Dependent?

Abstract

An individual's fitness depends not only on their phenotype but also on the phenotypes of their competitors and contemporaries. Sexual attractiveness may be strongly influenced by an individual's familiarity to potential mates or the rarity of the individual's phenotype. Such effects can cause negative frequency-dependent selection, maintaining striking polymorphisms in ornamentation. Here we test whether preferences for women's hair color, which is highly polymorphic between European populations, reflects patterns of positive or negative frequency-dependence. We assigned each participant to one of four experimental treatments in which we manipulated the frequency of hair colors in a set of 18 images presented consecutively. The four treatments were: blond hair rare, brown hair rare, red hair rare and an even distribution of the three hair colors. Following immediately on from this experimental phase, participants rated the same set of 9 faces, 3 with each hair color. Results showed that the experimental manipulation of hair color frequency did not significantly influence hair-color attractiveness. However, there were sex differences in ratings: men rated blond hair as most sexually attractive and women rated both blond and brown hair equally as attractive as red hair. Self-reported natural hair color had weak but significant effects on hair color preferences, but these effects disappeared when we restricted analyses to participants of European descent only. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that men's preferences for women's hair color are negative frequencydependent, favoring rare hair colors.

Age, Health and Attractiveness Perception of Virtual (Rendered) Human Hair

“…The preference for blonde hair may be evident only in men, as it has been proposed in the ‘rare-color advantage’ hypothesis (Frost, 2006). Thus, our data cannot support the view on either a presence or absence of such an effect (see for a lack of evidence, Janif et al, 2015). One could argue that women assessing other women’s hair tend to ‘derogate’ them by assigning less positive statements to features that are admired by men due to intra-sexual competition (as it has been shown for female facial attractiveness, Fisher, 2004).…”

“…Frost (2006) postulated the existence of a ‘rare-color advantage’ with regard to female hair. According to this view, those with a hair color of lower incidence in a given population should be perceived as more attractive than those with a hair color with greater incidence (but see Janif et al, 2015). Moreover, Sorokowski (2008) showed that men judged images of women with (digitally-enhanced) blonde hair significantly younger than the same images with brown hair (particularly in women around the age of 30).…”

How the Harsh Environment of an Army Training Camp Changes Human (Homo sapiens) Facial Preferences

“…Another study, however, found that experimentally manipulating the frequency of women's hair color, which in European populations is highly polymorphic and thought to have evolved under frequency‐dependent sexual selection, does not impact on preferences (Janif et al. ). Future research is therefore needed in order to understand why time had a significant effect for opposite‐sex adiposity preferences.…”

Hair colour and skin colour together influence perceptions of age, health and attractiveness in lightly pigmented young women

“…, blonde hair did not receive the most positive judgments. However, there were no male panellists included in the study and a blonde preference may be evident only in men, as proposed in the ‘rare‐colour advantage’ hypothesis (; but see ).…”