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Effects of Masks Worn to Protect Against COVID-19 on the Perception of Facial Attractiveness
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| Title: | Effects of Masks Worn to Protect Against COVID-19 on the Perception of Facial Attractiveness |
| Authors: | Kamatani, Miki Browse this author | | Ito, Motohiro Browse this author | | Miyazaki, Yuki Browse this author | | Kawahara, Jun I Browse this author |
| Keywords: | sanitary mask | | COVID-19 | | facial attractiveness | | healthiness |
| Issue Date: | 27-Jun-2021 |
| Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
| Journal Title: | I-perception |
| Volume: | 12 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Start Page: | 20416695211027920 |
| Publisher DOI: | 10.1177/20416695211027920 |
| Abstract: | Wearing a sanitary mask tended, in the main, to reduce the wearer's sense of perceived facial attractiveness before the COVID-19 epidemic. This phenomenon, termed the sanitary-mask effect, was explained using a two-factor model involving the occlusion of cues used for the judgment of attractiveness and unhealthiness priming (e.g., presumed illness). However, these data were collected during the pre-COVID-19 period. Thus, in this study, we examined whether the COVID-19 epidemic changed the perceived attractiveness and healthiness when viewing faces with and without sanitary masks. We also used questionnaires to evaluate beliefs regarding mask wearers. We found that the perception of mask-worn faces differed before versus after the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic. Specifically, mask-wearing improved wearers' sense of the attractiveness of faces, which were rated as less attractive when a mask was not worn after the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic. Furthermore, mask-worn faces were rated as healthier after the onset of the COVID-19. The proportion of respondents with negative associations regarding mask-wearing (e.g., unhealthiness) decreased relative to before the epidemic. We suggest that the weakening of this association altered the sanitary-mask effect with a relative emphasis on the occlusion component, reflecting the temporal impact of a global social incident (the COVID-19 epidemic) on the perception of facial attractiveness. |
| Rights: | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| Type: | article |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2115/82441 |
| Appears in Collections: | 文学院・文学研究院 (Graduate School of Humanities and Human Sciences / Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences) > 雑誌発表論文等 (Peer-reviewed Journal Articles, etc)
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