Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, , Beijing, 100101, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2024 Jun 10;9(1):36. doi: 10.1186/s41235-024-00565-7.
Facial features are important sources of information about perceived trustworthiness. Masks and protective clothing diminish the visibility of facial cues by either partially concealing the mouth and nose or covering the entire face. During the pandemic, the use of personal protective equipment affected and redefined who trusts whom in society. This study used the classical investment game of interpersonal trust with Chinese participants to explore the impact of occlusion on interpersonal trust. Faces with moderate initial trustworthiness were occluded by a mask or protective clothing in Experiment 1 and were digitally occluded by a square in Experiment 2, and faces with three levels of initial trustworthiness were occluded by a mask in Experiment 3. Results showed that both undergraduates (Experiment 1a) and non-student adults (Experiment 1b) perceived the faces with protective clothing as more trustworthy than faces wearing standard masks and faces not wearing masks. Faces with the top halves showing were perceived as trustworthy as full faces, while faces with the bottom halves showing were perceived as less trustworthy. The effect of masks is weak and complex. Masks reduced participants' trust in faces with high initial trustworthiness, had no effect on faces with low and moderate initial trustworthiness, and only slightly increased the trust of undergraduates in faces with moderate initial trustworthiness. Our findings indicate that the lack of information caused by occlusion and the social significance associated with occlusion collectively affect people's trust behavior in Chinese society. We believe the findings of this study will be useful in elucidating the effects of personal protective equipment usage on perceptions of trustworthiness.
面部特征是判断可信度的重要信息来源。口罩和防护服通过部分遮挡口鼻或覆盖整个面部来减少面部线索的可见度。在大流行期间，个人防护设备的使用影响并重新定义了社会中谁信任谁。本研究使用人际信任的经典投资游戏，让中国参与者参与，以探究遮挡对面部人际信任的影响。在实验 1 中，具有中等初始可信度的面部被口罩或防护服遮挡，在实验 2 中，被正方形数字遮挡，在实验 3 中，具有三个初始可信度级别的面部被口罩遮挡。结果表明，无论是大学生（实验 1a）还是非学生成年人（实验 1b），都认为穿着防护服的面孔比戴着标准口罩和不戴口罩的面孔更值得信任。只露出上半张脸的面孔被认为和全脸一样可信，而只露出下半张脸的面孔则被认为不太可信。口罩的影响是微弱而复杂的。口罩降低了参与者对高初始可信度面孔的信任，对低和中初始可信度面孔没有影响，只略微增加了中初始可信度面孔的大学生的信任。我们的发现表明，遮挡引起的信息缺失和与遮挡相关的社会意义共同影响了中国人的信任行为。我们相信这项研究的发现将有助于阐明个人防护设备使用对可信度认知的影响。
