Getting noticed

"A rapid and effective means for getting noticed in the crowd." Lady Gaga(?) in Stylist France.

I'm back to blogging after a 3-month absence. During my hiatus the magazine Stylist France interviewed me about head hair as a form of advertising. The resulting article appeared on October 11 under the headline "Forget the slogan T-shirt. To get yourself heard, nothing is more effective than a new hairstyle."

The full interview, in French with an English translation, is provided below:

French version:

Pouvez-vous expliquer succinctement le rôle de la sélection sexuelle dans l'apparition des cheveux blonds ?

La sélection sexuelle favorise la brillance et la nouveauté. Ce qui est brillant demeure plus longtemps en mémoire; ce qui est nouveau retient plus longtemps l'attention. Si on considère les couleurs des cheveux et des yeux, on constate une évolution vers la brillance, c'est-à-dire les cheveux noirs et les yeux bruns cèdent leur place à des couleurs vives, comme les cheveux roux ou blonds et les yeux verts ou bleus.

Quant à l'évolution vers la nouveauté, celle-ci se manifeste par la diversification de la palette des cheveux et des yeux. Au début, une nouvelle couleur émerge par la mutation, puis elle se répand jusqu'à ce qu'elle perde sa nouveauté ; à ce moment-là, la pression de la sélection sexuelle se réoriente pour favoriser une couleur moins fréquente. Ainsi, un équilibre s'établit entre les diverses couleurs.

Qu'est-ce qui permet d'affirmer que la sélection sexuelle est aussi importante voire plus importante que les rayons UV dans l'apparition des cheveux blonds ?

D'abord, les gènes contrôlant la couleur de la peau et celle des cheveux ne sont pas les mêmes. On peut avoir la peau très blanche, tout en possédant les cheveux foncés. De plus, la pression de sélection exercée par les rayons UV n'explique pas la diversification des allèles contrôlant la couleur des cheveux et des yeux. Enfin, on ne voit pas cette diversification chez les peoples indigènes habitant les mêmes latitudes de l'Asie du Nord et de l'Amérique du Nord.

Vous affirmez que ces traits distinguant les Européens sur le plan visuel résultent d'une pression de sélection qui vise surtout la femme. Pourquoi pas l'homme ?

Il y a eu une pénurie d'hommes chez les premiers Européens, en partie parce que la dépendance de la viande, comme partie dominante de l'alimentation, rendait la polygamie trop coûteuse pour les hommes, sauf pour les meilleurs chasseurs. De plus, comme on le constate toujours chez les peoples chasseurs du Nord, le taux de mortalité est plus élevé chez les hommes que chez les femmes. Résultat : un surplus de femmes. Celles-ci devaient se concurrencer pour les hommes disponibles.

Finalement, il semble y avoir un parallèle fort entre la supposée attraction, aujourd'hui, des hommes pour les femmes blondes (et les stéréotypes et exemples qui en ont découlé dans la pop culture) et le phénomène d'apparition des cheveux blonds il y a 11.000 ans.

Aujourd'hui, grâce aux études de l'ADN extraits des restes humains, on sait que les cheveux blonds existaient déjà il y a 18 000 ans. Le lieu d'origine semble être chez les peoples chasseurs des plaines de l'Europe de l'est et de la Sibérie de l'ouest pendant la dernière glaciation.

English version:

Can you succinctly explain the role of sexual selection in the appearance of blond hair?

Sexual selection favors brightness and novelty. Anything bright remains longer in memory; anything novel holds attention longer. If we consider hair and eye colors, we see an evolution toward brightness, i.e., black hair and brown eyes have ceded their place to bright colors, like red or blond hair and green or blue eyes.

As for evolution toward novelty, this has manifested itself in a diversification of the palette for the hair and the eyes. Initially, a new color emerges through mutation; then it spreads until it loses its novelty; at that moment, the pressure of sexual selection reorients itself to favor a less frequent color. Thus, an equilibrium becomes established between the various colors.

What makes you think that sexual selection is as important, indeed more important, than UV radiation in the appearance of blond hair?

First, the genes controlling skin color and hair color are not the same. One can have very white skin while having dark hair. In addition, the selection pressure of UV radiation does not explain the diversification of alleles controlling hair and eye color. Finally, this diversification is not seen among indigenous peoples inhabiting the same latitudes of northern Asia and North America.

You affirm that these traits that visually distinguish Europeans result from a selection pressure that is aimed especially at women. Why not men?

There was a shortage of men among the first Europeans, partly because dependence on meat, as a dominant part of the diet, made polygamy too costly for men, except for the best hunters. In addition, as is still seen among northern hunting peoples, the mortality rate is higher among men than among women. Result: a surplus of women. Those women had to compete for the available men.

Finally, there seems to be a strong parallel between the purported attraction, today, of men for blonde women (and the resulting stereotypes and examples in pop culture) and the phenomenon of the appearance of blond hair 11,000 years ago.

Today, thanks to studies of DNA extracted from human remains, we know that blond hair already existed 18,000 years ago. The place of origin seems to be among the hunting peoples of the plains of eastern Europe and western Siberia during the last ice age.

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On rereading my answers I realize I may have misunderstood the last question. The intent seems to be:  “Given that these evolutionary processes happened thousands of years ago, how can they explain the growing popularity of blond hair today?” This intent became clearer to me when I read the article, which focuses on blondness in pop culture, and its apparent surge in popularity since the 1970s. 

This trend appears in a study of Playboy playmates from 1954 to 2007. From a low of about 35% in the mid-1960s the proportion of blonde playmates rose to a high of 60% by the year 2000 (Anon 2008). A similar trend was found by Rich and Cash (1993).

Natural blondes are actually a lot scarcer among white Americans. In a sample of undergraduates the proportions were 68% brown, 27% blond, and 5% red (Rich and Cash 1993). Similar proportions appear in a British study: 68% brown, 25% blond, 1% red, and 6% black (Takeda et al., 2006).

Natural blond hair has since become less common in the United States and the United Kingdom. Are we seeing the novelty effect in action? Are blondes becoming sexier because fewer real ones are out there?

References

Anon. (2008). Bygone brunette beauty: Fashion in hair color, Gene Expression June 29

www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/06/bygone-brunette-beauty-fashion-in-hair.php

D'Almeida, P. and M. Giuliani. (2018). Qu'elle a bien pu vouloir dire avec cette coupe ? Stylist France, October 11, pp. 2-5.

Rich, M.K., and T.F. Cash. (1993). The American image of beauty: Media representations of hair color for four decades. Sex Roles 29: 113-124.

Takeda, M.B., M.M. Helms, and N. Romanova. (2006). Hair color stereotyping and CEO selection in the United Kingdom. Journal of human behavior in the social environment 13: 85-99

The novelty effect: a factor in mate choice

 

Series of facial images from clean-shaven to full beard (Janif et al., 2014)

For the past thirty years, the tendency has been to study sexual attractiveness from the observer's standpoint, i.e., we choose mates on the basis of what's good for us. We therefore unconsciously look for cues that tell us how healthy or fertile a potential mate may be. But what about the standpoint of the person being observed? If you want to be noticed on the mate market, it's in your interest to manipulate any mental algorithm that will make you noticeable, including algorithms that have nothing to do with mating and exist only to keep track of unusual things in the observer's surroundings. If you're more brightly colored or more novel in appearance, you will stand out and thus increase your chances of finding a mate.

We see this with hair color. In one study, men were shown pictures of attractive women and asked to choose the one they most wanted to marry. One series had equal numbers of brunettes and blondes, a second series 1 brunette for every 5 blondes, and a third 1 brunette for every 11 blondes. It turned out that the scarcer the brunettes were in a series, the likelier any one brunette would be chosen (Thelen, 1983). Another study likewise found that Maxim cover girls were disproportionately light blonde or dark brown, and much less often the more usual dark blonde or light brown (Anon, 2008). This novelty effect may be seen in sales of home interior colors over the past half-century: preference for one color rises until satiated, then falls and yields to preference for another (Stansfield & Whitfield, 2005).

The novelty effect seems to apply not only to colors but also to other visible features. In a recent study, participants were shown a series of faces with different degrees of beardedness. A clean-shaven face was preferred to the degree that it was rare, being most appreciated when the other faces had beards. Heavy stubble and full beards were likewise preferred to the degree that they were rare (Janif et al., 2014).

The authors conclude:

 

Concordant effects of frequency-dependent preferences among men and women might reflect a domain-general effect of novelty. Frost [20] suggested the variation in female blond, brown and red hair between European populations spread, geographically, from where they first arose, via negative frequency-dependent preferences for novelty. There is some evidence that men's preferences increase for brown hair when it is rare [21] and for unfamiliar (i.e. novel) female faces [22]. (Janif et al., 2014)

 

The authors go on to suggest that the quest for novelty may drive the ups and downs of fashion trends. A new fashion will rise sharply in popularity when it is still unfamiliar to most people. As the novelty wears off, its popularity will peak and then decline, especially if it faces competition from a more recent fashion.

There are certainly limits to the novelty effect—something can be novel but also disgusting—but it seems to be more general than previously thought.

 

References

Anon. (2008). Maxim's audience prefers brunettes; distribution is bimodal. Gene Expression, July 6, 2008.  http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/07/maxims-audience-prefers-brunettes.php  

Frost P. (2006). European hair and eye color: a case of frequency-dependent sexual selection? Evolution & Human Behavior, 27, 85-103.

Frost, P. (2008). Sexual selection and human geographic variation, Special Issue: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society, Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2(4),169-191. http://137.140.1.71/jsec/articles/volume2/issue4/NEEPSfrost.pdf  

Janif, Z.J., R.C. Brooks, and B.J. Dixson. (2014). Negative frequency-dependent preferences and variation in male facial hair, Biology Letters, 10, early view

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/4/20130958

Little A.C., L.M. DeBruine, B.C. Jones. (2013). Sex differences in attraction to familiar and unfamiliar opposite-sex faces: men prefer novelty and women prefer familiarity, Archives of Sexual Behavior, early view

Stansfield, J., and Whitfield, T.W.A. (2005) Can future colour trends be predicted on the basis of past colour trends? An empirical investigation, Color Research & Application, 30(3), 235-242. 

Thelen, T.H. (1983). Minority type human mate preference, Social Biology, 30, 162-180.