Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 23;16(4):e0249792. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249792. eCollection 2021.
Face masks became the symbol of the global fight against the coronavirus. While face masks' medical benefits are clear, little is known about their psychological consequences. Drawing on theories of the social functions of emotions and rapid trait impressions, we tested hypotheses on face masks' effects on emotion-recognition accuracy and social judgments (perceived trustworthiness, likability, and closeness). Our preregistered study with 191 German adults revealed that face masks diminish people's ability to accurately categorize an emotion expression and make target persons appear less close. Exploratory analyses further revealed that face masks buffered the negative effect of negative (vs. non-negative) emotion expressions on perceptions of trustworthiness, likability, and closeness. Associating face masks with the coronavirus' dangers predicted higher perceptions of closeness for masked but not for unmasked faces. By highlighting face masks' effects on social functioning, our findings inform policymaking and point at contexts where alternatives to face masks are needed.
口罩成为了全球抗击冠状病毒的象征。虽然口罩的医学益处显而易见，但人们对其心理后果知之甚少。本研究基于情绪的社会功能理论和快速特质印象理论，检验了口罩对面部表情识别准确性和社会判断（感知可信度、可喜爱度和亲密感）的影响。我们在德国进行了一项有 191 名成年人参与的预先注册研究，结果表明口罩会降低人们准确分类表情的能力，使目标人物看起来不那么亲密。探索性分析进一步表明，口罩可以缓冲负面（而非非负面）表情对面部感知可信度、可喜爱度和亲密感的负面影响。将口罩与冠状病毒的危险联系起来，预测戴口罩的面孔比不戴口罩的面孔更能让人感到亲近。通过强调口罩对社交功能的影响，我们的研究结果为政策制定提供了信息，并指出了需要替代口罩的情况。
