Research shows that wearing a mask for health reasons can influence people to behave more ethically.

In the year Since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the number of people wearing masks worldwide to limit the spread of the disease. Now, a new study co-authored by MIT academics suggests that, at least in China, mask-wearing also affects how people move.

Research conducted on 10 studies focused on deviant behavior -; such as running red lights, violating parking rules and extorting money -; It shows that people who wear masks are less likely to behave differently than those who don’t. The researchers said that not only this phenomenon, but the use of masks in China increases moral awareness and motivates some people to be more law-abiding.

“We found that masks act as a moral symbol in China that reduces the deviant behavior of the wearer,” said Jackson Lu, an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of the newly published paper.

According to Lu and his colleagues, a variety of factors can influence behavior, not just masking. Overall, they estimate that it accounts for about 4 percent of the difference in behavior they see when they compare the masked to the unmasked.

Masking explains a significant but reasonable amount of the difference. We are talking about opportunities here.

Jackson Lu, Associate Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

The paper, “Masks as a moral symbol: Masks reduce deviant behavior of wearers during Covid-19 in China.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors are Lou, associate professor of career development at the Sloan School of Work and Organization Studies; Leslie Luang Song, doctoral student in marketing at Tsinghua University in China; Yuhuang Zheng, associate professor of marketing at Tsinghua University; and Laura Changlan Wang, a doctoral student at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Two hypotheses, one answer

Since the pandemic began widely in early 2020, social scientists have learned a lot about people’s desire to wear masks, but they haven’t examined the effects of wearing masks in general. In conducting the study, Lu and his co-authors tested two competing hypotheses about the impact of mask-wearing on deviant behavior in China.

One hypothesis, Lu notes, is that “masks may inhibit wearers’ deviant behavior by providing anonymity,” making people “more likely to engage in” normal walking behaviors.

A competing hypothesis is that masks may heighten people’s moral awareness when wearing them, Lu says. “If it is a moral symbol of the moral duty and virtue of protecting others and sacrificing personal comfort for the common good, then perhaps wearing a mask can lead the individual to choose a more morally correct course of action,” he added.

To investigate these ideas, the researchers conducted 10 different studies in China to empirically address the issue. In one study, for example, they analyzed traffic cameras on intersections and found that both pedestrians and cyclists wearing masks were less likely to run a red light than those who did not.

Of course, people who choose to wear masks may be more cautious in general than those without masks, and walking or cycling behavior may reflect this predisposition. Scholars have conducted other studies to rule out individual risk aversion as an alternative explanation. One of their studies even regarding bicycle parking spaces -; A matter that does not concern the personal safety of an individual -; People wearing masks are more likely to follow the rules and park legally than those who don’t.

In another case, the researchers tried to identify the causes. They found that participants who were randomly assigned to wear masks (as opposed to those who did not) were less likely to cheat for money. Increased moral awareness partially explained the behavioral variance.

“The common thread is that they are all examples of deviant behavior that can harm individuals, organizations or society,” says Song. The study also included a survey showing that Chinese citizens view masks as a symbol of morality.

The 10 studies included nearly 68,000 observations, a large scale that demonstrates the reliability of the results.

“We have confidence in different measures of abnormal behavior,” Lu said. “It’s amazing to see how consistent the evidence is across different studies.”

Special results for China

To be sure, the researchers acknowledged that while masks have been worn globally over the past few years, the current study only looked at the Chinese community.

“We only have data from China, so we are careful not to generalize,” Lu says.

Among other things, Lu believes that wearing masks in China is not a political flashpoint like it has been in other countries. That masking of the body politic makes it difficult to avoid behavior elsewhere.

And even in China, Lu notes, the way masks influence behavior can change over time. The current study provides a snapshot of one phenomenon, but further work in other times and places may reveal new insights.

“The meaning of masks can be dynamic and contextual,” Lu says. “At present, masks may act as a moral symbol, but…over time, the meaning of masks may change. Future research is needed.”

Song and Zheng, co-authors of the study, received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.