Science confirms that we are more handsome with the mask

“Mask,” a word that has sparked heated debates in the past two years, and will continue to do so. Science has focused on proving its effectiveness in protecting us from SARS-CoV-2 infection, but not only in that.

Also in the world of research there are loose verses, and one of them is a pair of psychologists from Cardiff UniversityHe wanted to study the degree of attractiveness of people wearing a mask. Their results have just been published in the journal Cognitive Research, and they suggest that men who wear a mask are more attractive than those who ignore the face, especially if it’s surgery.

In the experiment, they analyzed the effects of different types of masks on the attractiveness of 40 male faces. Michael Lewis, a professor in the College of Psychology at the mentioned university, and an expert in facial psychology, he explained that there was research before the pandemic indicating that masks made wearers look less attractive, among other reasons, according to those previous analyzes, because they were linked to an image associated with diseases. “Now that they’ve become an everyday and ubiquitous thing, we wanted to see if that perception had changed and to see if the type of mask used mattered.”

The study indicates that faces are considered more attractive when covered with a surgical mask. This may be due to the fact that we used to wear toilets, and now we associate them with people who care about others. “At a time when we feel vulnerable, we may find some safety and positive connection with people who wear masks,” he said.

no matter how handsome you are

Similarly, the study found that faces are considered more attractive when they are covered with cloth masks than when they are not wearing anything.

Although this may be due to the fact that the mask hides some features that are considered less attractive, the fact is that this phenomenon is observed both in people who are traditionally considered beautiful and in others outside this norm.

The experiment they conducted involved assigning 43 participants (women) a task to score points for their attractiveness in pictures of men’s faces without a mask, with a cloth mask, a surgical mask, and holding a black book covering the same part of the image. the face. That would hide the mask. Faces were scored in terms of attractiveness from 1 to 10.
The study was conducted in February 2021, seven months after masks became mandatory in the UK in certain places, especially supermarkets and public transport, although regulations changed after June of the same year.

According to the researchers, although initially posed as a problem that masks can provide a false sense of security, various investigations have shown that they crucial element To help contain Covid cases, which is reflected in the preventive policies implemented in countries around the world.
Interestingly, the findings contradict research conducted on this topic prior to the outbreak of the epidemic, the author of the work added.

Current research shows that the pandemic has changed our psychological concept of people who wear masks. “When we see someone wearing a mask, we don’t think it’s a sick person and we have to stay away from it,” he said.

In his opinion, this phenomenon is connected with evolutionary psychology and how we choose a partner. Illness or signs of illness can play an important role in this choice: which sign will be a reason to exclude a person. Now, we can see a change in our perception of masks, which are no longer a symbol of something negative, says the author. In their conclusions, the authors note that more studies are already being conducted, with volunteers of both sexes, to determine the reaction according to gender.