“Perception of Men’s Personal Qualities and Prospect of Employment As a Function of Facial Hair,” Altay Alves Lino de Souza, Vera B.U. Baiao, and Emma Otta, Psychological Reports, vol. 92, no. 1, February 2003, pp. 201–8. (Thanks to John Bell for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at University of São Paulo, Brazil, explain [AIR 16:1]:
Participants evaluated photographs of one of four
versions of a man—clean shaven, mustached, goateed, or bearded—on a 7-point scale. In Study 1, participants were 106
Brazilian under-graduates (68 men and 38 women). Beardedness was associated with older age, greater responsibility, and leftist political ideas. In Study 2, respondents were 50 Brazilian personnel manager (28 men and 22 women) who made hiring decisions at different companies in the city of Sao Paulo. Personnel managers clearly preferred clean shaven over bearded, mustached, or goateed men as prospective employees