By: Zoe Zahra

It was the title of the 1953 film starring Marilyn Monroe and it’s been a widely held notion for years that gentleman prefer blondes. But researchers have recently found that contrary to popular belief men actually find brunettes more attractive and intelligent than blondes.

To discover whether men have a preference for blond, brunette or redhead women, researchers at the University of Westminster set up a study. They sent one woman to three different nightclubs in London. She dyed her hair brunette, blond and then red for each of the three clubs. They observed how many men approached her at each of the clubs and then returned to each one and asked 130 men to rate pictures of her with the three different hair colours.

They found that while she was chatted up the most as a blonde, being approached 60 times in total, she was actually rated most highly for attractiveness and intelligence as a brunette.

From these findings University of Westminster researcher Dr Viren Swami has said there may have been a shift in the way brunettes are now being idealised, similar to the way that blondes once were.

He said: "In the 60s and early 70s, when Jackie Kennedy was the ideal, brunette hair became the ideal for women generally. Then, in the 70s and 80s, blondes became the ideal."

He added "But more recently, there has been a backlash against blondes and the dumb blonde idea has become dominant."

Speculating on why the woman was rated more attractive as brunette but was actually chatted up more as a blonde, Dr Swami said: "One possible explanation is that men were more likely to assume sexual intent on the part of our confederate when she was blonde. Perceptions of the blonde confederate as being more needy may have reduced men's fear or rejection or fear or an aggressive response, which increased their likelihood of approaching her as a blonde."

The study has been published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.