What factors underlie attitudes regarding protective mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Abstract

Two studies examine psychological and demographic factors that predict attitudes toward mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies differentiate pro-mask from anti-mask attitudes. Political conservatism, younger age, and gender predicted anti-mask attitudes but were unrelated to pro-mask attitudes. Psychological reactance was associated with anti-mask attitudes, over and above demographic variables. Empathy, trust in healthcare professionals, and perceived normativity of mask wearing were associated with pro-mask attitudes, over and above demographic variables. These studies suggest that demographic variables such as political orientation and age are associated with anti-mask but not pro-mask attitudes, but also that psychological factors differentially predict anti- and pro-mask attitudes over and above demographic factors.

“Any idea how fast ‘It’s just a mask!’ can turn into ‘It’s just a vaccine!’”: From mask mandates to vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…To inform our assessment of this convergence between interests of groups of publics on health issues, we draw on previous literature about mandatory vaccination policies, from psychology and behavioural science to ethics, political theory, sociology, and public policy. Very recently a literature on attitudes to mask-wearing has developed through psychologists, interested in knowing the factors that drive use [21] , including by demographic group (men vs women) [33] , [19] , as well as political scientists and public health researchers focused on mask messaging [40] and culture change [26] . Through this paper we aim at understanding how social media discussions and debates about mandates from mask-wearing to vaccination were connected through their opposition to COVID-19 public health policies and have evolved over the course of the pandemic.…”

Self-reported mask-related worrying reduces relative avoidance bias toward unmasked faces in individuals with low Covid19 anxiety syndrome

“…In many countries, wearing a mask is mandatory in certain public spaces (Adjodah et al, 2021 ). Although masks are effective in reducing person-to-person transmission (Adjodah et al, 2021 ; Eikenberry et al, 2020 ), many individuals have a negative view of mask-wearing (Mallinas et al, 2021 ). Such individuals are less likely to report following mask-wearing recommendations and mandates (Rieger, 2020 ) and may be more inclined toward other risky behaviors, such as preferentially seeking contact with non-mask wearers.…”

Comparing Waves of COVID-19 in the US: Scale of response changes over time

“…We, therefore, separated and identified likely mechanistic sources of county differences in response to subsequent COVID-19 waves. We predicted that the variance explained by both state and peer county group would increase during the pandemic as any uniformity in response to the early pandemic (if there was any to begin with) broke down along political and demographic lines [23, 19, 8]. Instead we found that peer county group was most important for the response between waves 1 and 2 but this importance decreased, replaced by state identity, between waves 2 and wave 3 (Figure 4, Table 1).…”