After decades of advertisers trying to rope men into fixing their hair loss with products that barely work, men who have hair loss are now reclaiming their baldness.
After all, about 85% of men will experience significant hair thinning by the age of 50, so it's about time that we drop the negative stigma around male pattern baldness.
Sure, in our society appearances do matter, but thanks to bald, badass, and successful stars like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, LL Cool J, and Patrick Stewart, now more than ever bald is the new black.
There's even research that shows that there are several advantages that are associated with baldness.
In a study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, Dr. Frank Muscarella at Barry University in Florida found that bald men are perceived differently than men with hair, but it works in their favor.
Muscarella and his team of researchers asked male and female participants to rate photos of men who are bald and those with full heads of hair on physical attractiveness, aggressiveness, appeasement, and social maturity, which included honesty, intelligence, and social status.
After analyzing the data, they were able to conclude that people generally see bald men are more dominant, honest, and intelligent.
The only setback is that bald men didn't rank as high on the physical attractiveness scale, but they're still viewed as confident, and we can all agree that self-confidence is a sexy trait.
"Studies have shown baldness in men is seen as a non-threatening form of social dominance. There is a large body of literature that shows that although women like physically attractive men, they are also very attracted to signs of high social dominance," Muscarella told The Daily Mail.
He continued, "Consequently, it could now be explained how the characteristic was passed on. My speculation is that as humans evolved and the group became increasingly important for survival, males played a more integral role in the family group, and it may have been adaptive to evolve a morphological sign of this dominance-related role and one that made the adult males appear less threatening and more approachable to facilitate interactions with them."
In the second part of the study, photos of bald men were put up against snaps of men whose hair have been digitally removed, and still, participants rated the naturally bald men to be 13 percent more dominant and stronger, six percent more confident, and 10 percent more attractive.
They were also perceived to be more mature with better leadership skills than their male counterparts with full or thinning hair.
Muscarella's findings have been backed up by another study done by a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Men with shaved heads will fare better economically in negotiations," the study said.
So the takeaway from this is that since you can't exactly prevent hair loss, if it happens, just embrace the baldness because even if you don't realize it people view you in a whole new positive light.
