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The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes

This study tests the influence of wearing a protective face mask on the perceived attractiveness of the wearer. Participants who identified as White, and who varied in their ideological stance toward mask wearing, rated the attractiveness of facial photographs. The photos varied in baseline attracti...

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Autores principales: Dudarev, Veronica, Kamatani, Miki, Miyazaki, Yuki, Enns, James T., Kawahara, Jun I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9152543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35656497
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864936
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author Dudarev, Veronica
Kamatani, Miki
Miyazaki, Yuki
Enns, James T.
Kawahara, Jun I.
author_facet Dudarev, Veronica
Kamatani, Miki
Miyazaki, Yuki
Enns, James T.
Kawahara, Jun I.
author_sort Dudarev, Veronica
collection PubMed
description This study tests the influence of wearing a protective face mask on the perceived attractiveness of the wearer. Participants who identified as White, and who varied in their ideological stance toward mask wearing, rated the attractiveness of facial photographs. The photos varied in baseline attractiveness (low, medium, and high), race (White and Asian), and whether or not the face was wearing a protective mask. Attitudes regarding protective masks were measured after the rating task using a survey to identify participants as either pro- or anti-mask. The results showed that masked individuals of the same race were generally rated as more attractive than unmasked individuals, but that masked individuals of another race were rated as less attractive than unmasked individuals. Moreover, pro-mask participants rated masked individuals as generally more attractive than unmasked individuals, whereas anti-maskers rated masked individuals as less attractive. A control experiment, replicating the procedure but replacing the protective masks with a partially occluding notebook, showed that these effects were mask-specific. These results demonstrate that perceived attractiveness is affected by characteristics of the viewer (attitudes toward protective masks), their relationship to the target (same or different race), and by circumstances external to both (pandemic).
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spelling pubmed-91525432022-06-01 The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes Dudarev, Veronica Kamatani, Miki Miyazaki, Yuki Enns, James T. Kawahara, Jun I. Front Psychol Psychology This study tests the influence of wearing a protective face mask on the perceived attractiveness of the wearer. Participants who identified as White, and who varied in their ideological stance toward mask wearing, rated the attractiveness of facial photographs. The photos varied in baseline attractiveness (low, medium, and high), race (White and Asian), and whether or not the face was wearing a protective mask. Attitudes regarding protective masks were measured after the rating task using a survey to identify participants as either pro- or anti-mask. The results showed that masked individuals of the same race were generally rated as more attractive than unmasked individuals, but that masked individuals of another race were rated as less attractive than unmasked individuals. Moreover, pro-mask participants rated masked individuals as generally more attractive than unmasked individuals, whereas anti-maskers rated masked individuals as less attractive. A control experiment, replicating the procedure but replacing the protective masks with a partially occluding notebook, showed that these effects were mask-specific. These results demonstrate that perceived attractiveness is affected by characteristics of the viewer (attitudes toward protective masks), their relationship to the target (same or different race), and by circumstances external to both (pandemic). Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9152543/ /pubmed/35656497 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864936 Text en Copyright © 2022 Dudarev, Kamatani, Miyazaki, Enns and Kawahara. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Dudarev, Veronica
Kamatani, Miki
Miyazaki, Yuki
Enns, James T.
Kawahara, Jun I.
The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes
title The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes
title_full The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes
title_fullStr The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes
title_full_unstemmed The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes
title_short The Attractiveness of Masked Faces Is Influenced by Race and Mask Attitudes
title_sort attractiveness of masked faces is influenced by race and mask attitudes
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9152543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35656497
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864936
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