Mask wearing provides psychological ease but does not affect facial expression intensity estimation

Author:

Kawagoe Toshikazu1ORCID,Teramoto Wataru2

Affiliation:

1. School of Humanities and Science, Tokai University, Kumamoto Campus, Toroku 9-1-1, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto 862-8652, Japan

2. Division of Cognitive Psychology, Kumamoto University, 2-40-1 Kurokami, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto 860-8555, Japan

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing a face mask became a global daily practice. Japanese people were already accustomed to wearing masks due to their collectivistic culture, which prioritizes conformity and group harmony. In such a culture, where individuals are concerned about how others perceive them and their actions, wearing masks can be a self-protective action to prevent, escape, or reduce the severity of perceived negative feelings. Previous studies indicate that people experiencing anxiety tend to have negative biases when evaluating emotional expressions on faces. Therefore, we hypothesized that wearing a mask can reduce the negative feelings caused by social pressure, emotion processing, especially intensity perception. While our findings confirmed that wearing a mask reduced negative feelings caused by social pressure, there was no significant change in emotion intensity recognition performance. This null result might be attributed to the small effect size of the association between negative bias in emotion processing and an individual's state. In future studies, it would be valuable to include participants from non-collectivistic cultures to gain a broader understanding of the impact of wearing masks on emotion processing.

Funder

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

Multidisciplinary

Reference41 articles.

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