A study conducted by two Pennsylvania universities has found that people who wore face masks were thought to be more attractive than people who did not.
The project, called “Beauty and the Mask,” was conducted Temple University’s College of Public Health and the Center for Human Appearance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
The study utilized a “racially diverse set of male and female faces,” sourced from the Chicago Face Database.
Participants were required to rank faces without a mask and categorize them as “unattractive,” “average” or “attractive.”
When surgical masks were digitally added to the faces, the study found that the participants upped their attractiveness rankings “in statistically significant amounts for both women and men.”
“Many people believe that the appearance of the eyes is one of the strongest influencers of judgments of attractiveness,” said David B. Sarwer, the associate dean for research and director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple’s College of Public Health. “This study suggests that aspects of the lower face, which are covered by masks, also play an important role in perceptions of attractiveness.”
Many local governments in the U.S. are now mandating the wearing of masks in public and some are even mandating the wearing of masks at home.
Vice President Joe Biden has said he would institute a national face-mask mandate if he were elected president.
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