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When Face Masks Signal Social Identity: Explaining the Deep Face-Mask Divide During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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  • Powdthavee, Nattavudh
  • Riyanto, Yohanes Eko
  • Wong, Erwin C. L.
  • Xiong-Wei, Jonathan Yeo
  • Qi-Yu, Chan

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and the vaccination program still rolling out, there continues to be an immediate need for public health officials to better understand the mechanisms behind the deep and perpetual divide over face masks in America. Using a random sample of Americans (N=615), following a pre-registered experimental design and analytic plan, we first demonstrated that mask wearers were not innately more cooperative as individuals than non-mask wearers in the Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) game when information about their own and the other person’s mask usage was not salient. However, we found strong, revealed preference evidence of in-group favoritism among both mask and non-mask wearers when information about the other partner’s mask usage was known. Holding other things constant, non-mask wearers were 23 percentage points less likely to cooperate than mask wearers when facing a mask-wearing partner, and 26 percentage points more likely to cooperate than mask wearers when facing a non-mask wearing partner. Our analysis suggests social identity effects to be one of the main drivers of people’s decision whether to wear or shun face masks during the pandemic. Policy makers should therefore take social perception of face masks into account when designing not only what public messages to deliver, but also who to deliver these messages.

Suggested Citation

  • Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Riyanto, Yohanes Eko & Wong, Erwin C. L. & Xiong-Wei, Jonathan Yeo & Qi-Yu, Chan, 2021. "When Face Masks Signal Social Identity: Explaining the Deep Face-Mask Divide During the COVID-19 Pandemic," OSF Preprints yp2jv, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yp2jv
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yp2jv
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    Cited by:

    1. Eitan Altman & Mandar Datar & Francesco Pellegrini & Samir Perlaza & Daniel Sadoc Menasché, 2022. "The Mask Game with Multiple Populations," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 147-167, March.
    2. Hunter, P.V. & Ward, H.A. & Puurveen, G., 2023. "Trust as a key measure of quality and safety after the restriction of family contact in Canadian long-term care settings during the COVID-19 pandemic," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 18-27.
    3. Soo-Hyun Sung & You-Sang Baik & Ji-Eun Han & Eun-Jin Lee & Jihye Kim & Minjung Park & Ji-Yeon Lee & Jang-Kyung Park & Jung-Youn Park & Eunkyung Lee, 2022. "Traditional Korean Medicine Home Care for the Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-13, January.
    4. Ifie, Kemefasu & Mousavi, Sahar & Xie, Junyi, 2023. "Enforcement of service rules by frontline employees: A conceptual model and research propositions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

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