The Effects of Hair Color on Males’ Preference in Females

Abstract

The Effects of Hair Color on Males’ Preference in Females

Hair color is an obvious feature of an individual’s appearance. Guéguen and Lamy (2013) found that men complied more when the blonde female confederate asked the male participants to fill out a short two-minute questionnaire than when the redhead confederate asked the same task. Men once preferred blonde females because blonde hair was associated with youth and fertility in women. However, women can easily change their hair color, and the idea of blonde hair being attractive may be obsolete. We hypothesized that males would be more attracted to brunette females than blonde or red headed females.

Three separate Tinder profiles were created of similar women; the only difference was hair color (blonde, redhead, and brunette). Once the profiles were created, each woman “liked” the first 100 males presented, creating 300 participants overall. Afterwards, the male participants chose to either “like” or “pass” the female’s photo. If the male liked the female’s photo, they were considered a “match”.

The results showed a significant difference between the amounts of likes and matches that each of the females’ photo received (p