Impact Of The Cute Creative Masks On Interpersonal Interaction

With the gradual opening of the new coronavirus epidemic prevention and control policy,it seems to become less feasible to compel people to wear masks in public,and how to increase people’s willingness to wear masks voluntarily will be of great help to the future epidemic prevention and control work.Although changing the shape and material of masks through industrial design has enabled the mass production of safe,comfortable and inexpensive ordinary medical masks,people’s consumption concept is also changing.The monotonous blue color tends to cause aesthetic fatigue,just like wearing clothes and hats,after the basic needs are met,the fancy will slowly arise.Moe creative mask is a product derived from the ordinary medical mask by changing the surface color of the mask and adding cute cartoon patterns.Compared with ordinary medical masks,the rich colors and cute patterns on the moongized creative masks can meet the aesthetic and personality needs of different individuals or groups and help impression management.The emergence of moongized creative masks provides people with freedom of choice and space to show their personality,and driven by the moong culture,they are highly sought after by the majority of youth groups.However,it needs to be further explored whether the cute creative masks will bring benefits to the process of interpersonal interaction as people expect.Previous studies have found that wearing ordinary medical masks obscures the nasal and mouth areas,preventing people from recognizing other people’s faces and causing difficulties in re-identification,which may reduce the probability of people communicating with each other.According to the theory of attentional resource allocation,the rich patterns and colors on the cute creative masks will occupy more attentional resources than ordinary medical masks,making face recognition more difficult.Therefore,Experiment 1 used a one-way between-subjects design,with the independent variables being no mask,wearing a cute creative mask and a regular medical mask,and the dependent variables being face recognition rate and reaction time,and simulated the life scenario of a hurried glance with passers-by.It was found that wearing the mask did cause difficulties in face recognition,and the impact of the cute creative mask was greater than that of the ordinary medical mask,which was reflected in the increase of the recognition time and the increase of the error rate.This means that the colors and patterns on the cute creative masks attract people’s attention and make face recognition more difficult.In the process of interpersonal interaction,external decorations such as jewelry and clothing can influence others’ judgment of the user.Compared with monotonous blue,cyan or light blue,most people will prefer cute cartoon patterns.Since the patterns and colors on the cute creative masks will attract others’ attention,it is likely that they will bring more help to the users in the process of interpersonal interaction and increase the possibility of being chosen by others.In Experiment 2A,a lexical association experiment was conducted in which the subjects were asked to make lexical associations between the ordinary medical masks and the creative masks themselves,as well as the wearing effect.The results showed that compared with the ordinary medical masks,the cute creative masks could activate more associations related to the surface patterns and colors of the masks rather than the medical properties of the masks themselves,and thus were more likely to convey more positive impressions to others.Experiment 2B,on the other hand,created several common life situations of character selection and asked the subjects to choose a picture of a mask-wearing person’s face that was appropriate to the situation.The results showed that the faces wearing the cute and creative masks were chosen more often than the faces wearing ordinary medical masks.The two experiments together suggest that the positive associations generated by the cute patterns and colors on the surface of the cute creative masks can spread from the masks themselves to the wearers,bringing benefits to the wearers in real-life situations and increasing their popularity.Although cute creative masks can increase the popularity of the wearer in unfamiliar situations,for groups with strict dress codes,wearing cute creative masks during the work process may destroy the dress code,make others feel fancy and out of tune,affect others’ recognition of the wearer’s occupation,and reduce the likelihood of the wearer being selected.The formal experiment was a one-way within-subjects design,with the independent variable being the degree of professional dress code and the dependent variable being the selection of the face of the cute creative mask,in which subjects were asked to choose one of two faces wearing different masks to match their current occupational name.The results showed that the subjects thought that the face pictures with ordinary masks were more suitable for occupations with strict dress codes,such as military,police,emergency nurses,firefighters and doctors,i.e.,for occupations with strict dress codes,the cute creative masks would destroy the dress code and lower the occupational recognition of the wearer to a greater extent.This study concludes that,compared with ordinary medical masks,the creative masks will take up some of the attentional resources and cause more trouble in recognizing strangers’ faces.These occupied attention resources will use the cute patterns and soft colors on the surface of the cute creative masks as cues to trigger positive associations,which will make the wearer look more positive,healthy and energetic,thus enhancing the wearer’s popularity in interpersonal interactions.However,in professional groups where dress codes are more stringent,the use of cute creative masks will reduce others’ professional recognition of the wearer and is discouraged.