Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing protective facial masks has become a divisive issue, yet little is known about what drives differences in mask wearing across individuals. We surveyed 711 people around the world, asking about mask wearing and several other variables. We found that people who reported greater perceived risk of infection, stress, and those with greater consideration of future consequences reported wearing masks more often during in-person interactions. Participants who knew more people who had been infected and those who lived in postal codes with higher prevalence of COVID-19 perceived their risk of infection to be higher and reported greater pandemic-related stress. Perceived risk of infection and pandemic-related stress were higher overall in women and those reporting greater future-orientedness. Finally, participants who were more politically conservative reported lower perceived risk of becoming infected and lower stress than those who were more liberal, but there was no reliable difference in mask wearing between these groups. This is the first of four papers investigating mask wearing using this data set;the forthcoming papers will focus on predicting attitudes and motivations about mask wearing, the situations in which people do and do not report wearing masks, and the extent to which people report mask wearing in their communities. This is part of a broader study to understand the psychological and social influences on mask wearing and, more broadly, the impacts of the pandemic on human behavior and social interactions.
Mask wearing is associated with COVID-19 Prevalence, Risk, Stress, and Future Orientation