Participants accepted more offers, including more unfair offers, from surgical mask-wearing opponents than from opponents without a mask; effect was enhanced when participants ascribed more altruistic motives

Fatfouta, Ramzi, and Yulia Oganian. 2020. “Bargaining Under Social Distancing Requirements: Effects of Face Masks on Socio-economic Decision-making in the COVID-19 Pandemic.” PsyArXiv. July 10. doi:10.31234/osf.io/cn7by

Abstract: Face masks play a pivotal role in the control and prevention of respiratory diseases, such as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Despite their widespread use, it is not known how face masks affect human social interaction. In this behavioral economics study (N = 475), we examined how mask-wearing modulates individuals’ likelihood of acceptance of unfair monetary offers in an iterated social exchange. Overall, participants accepted more offers, including more unfair offers, from mask-wearing opponents than from opponents without a mask. This effect was enhanced when participants ascribed more altruistic motives to their interaction partner. Importantly, this pattern of results was only present for surgical face masks, but not when a non-medical cloth face covering was used. This is the first study to uncover a new phenomenon, the face-mask effect, in which face masks can alter human social behavior.