Beyond the Beauty of Occlusion: Medical Masks Increase Facial Attractiveness More than Other Face Coverings

Autor/inn/en	Hies, Oliver; Lewis, Michael B.
Titel	Beyond the Beauty of Occlusion: Medical Masks Increase Facial Attractiveness More than Other Face Coverings
Quelle	In: Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7 (2022), Artikel 1 (6 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Lewis, Michael B.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2365-7464
DOI	10.1186/s41235-021-00351-9
Schlagwörter	Hygiene; Disease Control; Aesthetics; Human Body; Social Desirability + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ästhetik; Menschlicher Körper; Soziales Bedürfnis
Abstract	The sanitary-mask effect (Miyazaki and Kawahara in Jpn Psychol Res 58(3):261-272, 2016) is the finding that medical face masks prompt an image of disease and thus result in lower ratings of facial attractiveness of the wearer. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, medical masks have been found to increase attractiveness (Patel et al. in Plast Reconstruct Surg Glob Open 8(8), 2020) although this could have been a general effect of occlusion. To further explore this issue, female participants were presented with a series of male faces of low or high attractiveness that were occluded with a medical mask, cloth mask, book or not occluded and asked to rate them on attractiveness. The results show that faces were considered as most attractive when covered by medical masks and significantly more attractive when occluded with cloth masks than when not occluded. Contrary to expectation, base attractiveness did not interact with the type of occlusion, suggesting that this is not simply due to occlusion of negative features. The present findings are contrary to the sanitary-mask effect and explanations in terms of social desirability, and the association of medical masks with caregiving professions is explored. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01