#Report shows the psychological advantages of quirkiness

At some point or another, it’s likely you’ve been told the encouraging phrase that standing out from the status quo is an attractive trait — now there may be supporting psychological evidence of it.

A new report suggests that social habits we identify as quirky or non-conforming are appealing to many on the novelty of just their difference alone.

“If we consider advantages as cultural, then anti-conformity might be advantageous in areas such as music, literature, fashion, or visual art,” Stanford University biology Ph.D. student Kaleda Krebs Denton said in the report.

Using the sample of facial hair’s recent “peak beard” popularity amongst men, there is now a suggestion that clean-shaven men will win female favor in the near future just on that principle of contrast, according to a 2014 study.

“So you get these novelty effects – it’s like: ‘Something different is being shown to me and it’s appealing,’” Barnaby Dixson, a psychologist at Australia’s University of Queensland told BBC, adding that diversity is favored by natural selection.

The study used the example of a child picking their favorite of two sports teams in a mixed household, stating that the child choosing the less popular of the two is an early sign of non-conformity and vice versa.

“It is not necessary that a rare variant is better in any way; rather, the uniqueness itself may be intrinsically valued,” Denton said.

There is also evidence that the most desirable figure of the female form has morphed throughout history, according to Jeanne Bovet, an evolutionary biologist at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom.

She explained in the report that artwork from 500 BCE through the 15th century indicated a woman’s beauty was portrayed by her waist-to-hip ratios while more recent analysis has shown more of a fixation on the weight and height of women.

When it comes to women choosing men, recent research has shown a “swimmer’s body” type to be the most popular.

It was also suggested that a desire to not conform is connected to popular baby names going in and out of style at a rapid pace.