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

Effects of masks worn to protect against COVID-19 on the perception of facial attractiveness. Miki Kamatani, Motohiro Ito, Yuki Miyazaki, and Jun I. Kawahara. Accepted at i-Perception (2021) DOI: 10.1177/20416695211027920. Jun 2021

Abstract: Wearing a sanitary mask tended, in the main, to reduce the wearer's sense of perceived facial attractiveness before the COVID-19 epidemic (Miyazaki & Kawahara, 2016). 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 the present 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. Further, mask-worn faces were rated as healthier post-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.