Received: ApAccepted: Published: June 10, 2021Ĭopyright: © 2021 Powdthavee et al. PLoS ONE 16(6):Įditor: Jun Tanimoto, Kyushu Daigaku, JAPAN Our analysis suggests social identity effects as the primary reason behind people’s decision whether to wear face masks during the pandemic.Ĭitation: Powdthavee N, Riyanto YE, Wong ECL, Yeo JXW, Chan QY (2021) When face masks signal social identity: Explaining the deep face-mask divide during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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. However, we found strong evidence of in-group favouritism among both mask and non-mask wearers when information about the other partner’s mask usage was known. Using a random sample of Americans ( N = 615), following a pre-registered experimental design and analysis 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. 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.
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