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

Nattavudh Powdthavee, Yohanes Riyanto, Erwin Wong, Jonathan Yeo () and Qi Yu Chan
Additional contact information
Erwin Wong: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Qi Yu Chan: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

No 14715, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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 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. 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. 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 as the primary reason behind people's decision whether to wear face masks during the pandemic.

Keywords: social identity; cooperation; COVID-19; face mask; prisoners' dilemma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hea, nep-sea and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: PLoS One, 2021, 16(6), e0253195

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Related works:
Journal Article: When face masks signal social identity: Explaining the deep face-mask divide during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021)
Working Paper: When Face Masks Signal Social Identity: Explaining the Deep Face-Mask Divide During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2021)
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