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The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
A practical test of the link between perceived identifiability and prosociality with two field studies
Yashvin Seetahul1, Tobias Greitemeyer2
1University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria. yashvin.seetahul@uibk.ac.at.
None:
Covering the face with masks in public settings has been recommended since the start of the pandemic. Because faces provide information about identity, and that face masks hide a portion of the face, it is plausible to expect individuals who wear a mask to consider themselves less identifiable. Prior research suggests that perceived identifiability is positively related to prosocial behavior, and with two pre-registered field studies (total N = 5706) we provide a currently relevant and practical test of this relation. Our findings indicate that mask wearers and non-wearers display equivalent levels of helping behavior (Studies 1 and 2), although mask wearers have a lower level of perceived identifiability than those without a mask (Study 2). Overall, our findings suggest that claims that face masks are related to selfish behavior are not warranted, and that there is no practical link between perceived identifiability and prosocial behavior.
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