In the hands of the beholder: Wearing a COVID-19 mask is associated with its attractiveness.

Veronica Dudarev,Rebecca M Todd,James T Enns,Maria Gm Manaligod

doi:10.1177/17470218211037128

Veronica Dudarev, Rebecca M Todd + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218211037128

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Abstract

Protective facial masks reduce the spread of COVID-19 infection and save lives. Yet a substantial number of people have been resistant to wearing them. Considerable effort has been invested in convincing people to put on a mask, if not for their own sake than for those more vulnerable. Social and cognitive psychologists know that use and liking go both ways: people use what they like, and they like what they use. Here we asked whether positive attitudes towards facial masks were higher in those who had been wearing them longer. We asked participants in a diverse sample (N = 498 from five countries and more than 30 US states) to rate how attractive and emotionally arousing masks and other objects associated with COVID-19 were in comparison to neutral objects, as well as reporting on their mask-wearing habits. To confirm reliability of findings, the experiment was repeated in a subset of participants 8–10 weeks later. The findings show that regular use of protective masks was linked to their positive appraisal, with a higher frequency and a longer history of wearing a mask predicting increased mask attractiveness. These results extended to other COVID-related objects relative to controls. They also provide critical ecological validity for the idea that emotional appraisal of everyday objects is associated with our experience of using them. Practically, they imply that societal measures to encourage mask wearing may have contributed to positive emotional appraisals in those who put them on, whether due to personal choice or societal pressure.

Highlights

Protective facial masks reduced the spread of COVID-19 infection and saved lives (Gandhi et al, 2020; Lyu & Wehby, 2020)
Where do we find a real-life situation in which people encounter novel objects en masse? The circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, where early in the pandemic people were faced with the choice of using or not using protective masks, offered us precisely such an opportunity
As the pandemic unfolded, it provided an opportunity to study the association between object usage and emotional appraisal separately in people who began using these objects earlier versus later, and had different reasons for doing so, including reasons linked to personal ideology and reasons linked to situational circumstances

Summary

Introduction

Protective facial masks reduced the spread of COVID-19 infection and saved lives (Gandhi et al, 2020; Lyu & Wehby, 2020). A substantial number of people have been resistant to wearing masks, especially younger people, who have been more likely to spread the disease because of their higher frequency of social contacts (Knotek et al, 2020). Some people have been resistant to wearing masks because of personal beliefs and ideological affiliations (Aratani, 2020; Beer, 2020; Karalis, 2020; Knotek et al, 2020; Miller & Brueck, 2020). There is a growing literature documenting that the arrow of influence runs in the other direction too: Merely attending to or acting on an object increases its emotional salience

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