Faced with picture of men with and without different scars, women rated the scarred faces as better looking, but scars did not enhance women's attractiveness to men.
"This is the first study to demonstrate that under certain circumstances post-traumatic scarring may increase a person's perceived social worth,'' say the researchers from the universities of Liverpool and Stirling.
"Our results suggest that under certain circumstances scars may advertise valued information about their bearers, and that the idea that scarring universally devalues social perceptions can no longer be assumed to be true."
In the study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, around 220 people were asked to look at pictures of men and women, some of which had been manipulated to have different scars.
Results show that scarring enhances women's ratings of men's attractiveness for short-term, but not for long-term, relationships. Men's ratings of female attractiveness were unaffected by scarring.
Exactly why women favour scars is not clear, but one theory is that they provide visible evidence of past trauma and may also communicate information about the man's history and personality, as well as affect their attractiveness.
It has also been suggested that scarring associated with violence may signal to a woman that the man has a risk-taking personality or above average masculinity, both of which might appeal to women for short term relationships. Because of that, scars may indirectly be a sign of good genes or a strong immune system that also appeal to women for short-term relationships.
The scars that are rated attractive are those that appear to be associated with post traumatic events or violence of some kind.
"Scars that indicate past illness like chickenpox, acne, or surgery scars, and which therefore suggest a weaker immune system, may be viewed more negatively than other types of scarring," says the report.
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