A new study has revealed that facial scars boost men’s attractiveness towards women.

The
researchers from the universities of Liverpool and Stirling discovered
that even though women find men with scars attractive, they would not
have a permanent relationship with them.

The study, which was conducted on 220 persons of both genders, found that facial scars can help win a woman’s heart.

During
the study, the participants were asked to see pictures of men and
women, some of which had been manipulated to have different scars.

The
study results showed that women, who were shown faces of men with and
without different scars graded the scarred faces as good-looking.

But, the facial scars did not enhance women’s attractiveness towards men.

The
researchers said, “This is the first study to demonstrate that under
certain circumstances post-traumatic scarring may increase a person's
perceived social worth.”

“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,” the researchers added.

The
study, published in the journal 'Personality and Individual
Differences', suggested that facial scars appear to be associated with
posttraumatic events or violence of some kind are rated ‘attractive’.

Although
the study researchers are unclear as to why women favour scars, they
think scarring associated with violence may indicate to a woman that
the man has a daring personality or above average masculinity, which
might attract women for short term relationships.