Masks make people look more attractive, study finds

In short, the effects of the current coronavirus pandemic have been negative in many respects, however, The investigations that continue to develop around the disease have yielded all kinds of data.

One of them, which could be pointed out as positive, is one discovered by researchers at Cardiff University, England, which indicates that people look more attractive with masks.

According to a publication of The Guardian, the researchers were surprised to find that both men and women they looked better with a mask that obscured the lower half of their faces.

This information becomes even more specific and points out that surgical masks, disposable type, they are the ones that make people look even better.

Dr Michael Lewis, from Cardiff University’s school of psychology and an expert on faces, said that research done before the pandemic had found that medical face masks reduced attractiveness because they were associated with disease or illness.

“We wanted to test if this had changed ever since face coverings became ubiquitous and understand if the type of mask had any effect,” he said.

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“Our study suggests that faces are considered more attractive when they are covered by medical masks. This may be because we are used to healthcare workers wearing blue masks and now associate them with people in the caring or medical professions. At a time when we feel vulnerable, we may be reassured by the use of medical masks and, therefore, we feel more positive towards the user”, he added.

The results of this study have been published in the journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.

How was the study developed?

The first phase of the research was carried out in February 2021, when the British population had become accustomed to wearing masks in some circumstances.

For the study, we asked forty-three women who rated the attractiveness of images of male faces without a mask on a scale of one to ten, wearing a plain cloth mask, a blue medical mask, and holding a plain black book that covered the area that a mask would hide.

Why continue to wear a mask indoors?

Participants said that those who wore a cloth mask were much more attractive than those who did not wear one or whose faces were partially obscured by the book. But the surgical mask, which was just the regular, disposable kind, made the wearer look even better.

“The results run counter to pre-pandemic research that masks were thought to make people think about illness and that the person should be avoided,” Lewis said. “The pandemic has changed our psychology in how we perceive mask wearers. When we see someone wearing a mask we no longer think ‘that person has a disease, I need to get away’.

“This relates to evolutionary psychology and why we select the partners that we do. Disease and evidence of disease may play an important role in mate selection; previously, any sign of illness would be a big turn off. Now we can see a change in our psychology, so that face masks no longer act as a sign of contamination,” he added.

Lewis further mentioned that it is possible that the masks made people more attractive because they drew attention to the eyes. He said other studies had found that covering the left or right half of the face also made people look better, partly because the brain fills in the missing spaces and exaggerates the overall impact.

Which mask protects the most against the variants of the coronavirus?

A second study has been carried out, in which a group of men look at women with masks; has not been published yet but Lewis said the results were pretty much the same. The researchers did not ask the participants to explain their sexual orientations. (I)