The Masking Transformation

"There are really two dimensions here."
"[As economies reopen] there may be some false sense of security that because things are reopening things are getting better -- 'I don't need to wear this mask'." 
"It's kind of taboo when people are not in masks in public spaces like grocery stores [in Maine]. I don't know if it's shaming. It could just be anxiety that this person isn't wearing a mask -- 'what's that telling me about their habits and how safe they've been, and could they potentially be a carrier'?"
"We speculate that, depending on the norm, masks could signal competence -- that this person is intelligent, is following public health."
"But it could also promote more of a coldness dimension, because the mouth region gives us so much important information about emotion."
"That's not to say we shouldn't do it [wear face masks], but I wonder if there are other ways we can increase perceptions of closeness, without increasing actual risk."
Mollie Ruben, assistant professor of psychology, University of Maine

"The use of masks has perhaps been one of the most contentious aspects of the world's response to the pandemic."
"If these masks prevent even a limited amount of transmission of COVID-19, lives could be saved."
Reopening paper, Ontario Medical Association

"There  is clear survival value in noticing from a frown that someone is getting angry with us, long before they throw a spear, or dump us as lovers."
Raj Persaud, Peter Bruggen, Psychology Today paper

'The point of the mask,' says Christopher Labos, 'is to protect others from you,' especially if you are an asymptomatic carrier of the virus

When it was an issue of women in cultural, political Islam -- whom the Koran urged to modest behaviour wearing the niqab (face veil) and even more so, the complete-body-and-face-covering burqa it was perceived as dehumanizing, Western society saw it as yet another instance of a religious ideology suffocating women, removing their sovereignty as individuals due basic human rights, replacing it with a religious/cultural dictate born of misogyny, making them invisible, under the guise of 'protecting' them, burdening them with the inability to personally interact with others through a casual smile, a recognition of their humanity.

Now that so suddenly, the entire world is impacted with the need to isolate socially and wear protective face masks in the hope of distancing ourselves from the potential of contracting a potentially deadly disease, we are faced with the same dilemma. Face masks worn for health reasons, as opposed to covering the face leaving only the eyes free in the interests of ensuring that women remained 'modest' produce a like end result. Anonymity, remoteness, social coldness.

Dr.Ruben describes her mental alteration on donning a face mask: "I just shut down completely. I know I can't emit and express the cues I want to" -- of civility, friendliness, posing no threat to anyone. This locking away of our visible emotions that have served since humankind first walked the Earth, to assure and reassure those who were strangers that no harmful intentions that might impact others were being considered; of a species of animal naturally imbued with an urge to befriend strangers has come to us courtesy of a universal threat: SARS-CoV-2.

Dr.Ruben is involved in studying the field of non-verbal communications, and she has been piqued with curiosity over how much the "smoothness" [ease] of verbal communication will be affected in society taking to wearing face masks as a mode of protecting against contamination by COVID. The five public health pillars seen as necessary for a safe return to what we now yearn for as 'normalcy, include the use of face masks along with physical distancing and sound hygienic measures.

It did take awhile for Canadians to be convinced to accept those standards for everyone's protection. Particularly since Canada's chief public health officer, Dr.Theresa Tam, steadily repeated that Canadians who are asymptomatic had no need to wear masks on leaving their homes for public spaces. Then came the reversal in April with Dr.Tam stating: "[an] additional measure that you can take to protect others around you" is the wearing of face masks.

 Etsy's total sales doubled in April, due to face mask sales. (Etsy)

Americans have not taken joyfully to the wearing of such face masks. Michigan has seen armed protesters demonstrate against orders to stay at home. Asking customers entering businesses came with risks such that a Family Dollar store security guard being shot to death for cautioning a customer to wear a face mask, mandated by the state, when entering enclosed public spaces. In Oklahoma legislators were forced to reverse an emergency order for face coverings to be worn, after violence was threatened.

According to Dr.K.K. Cheng, a professor of public health at Birmingham University, mass masking could be realized as a symbol of solidarity; the people armed against a threatening virus. "Wearing masks in the community will only bring meaningful population benefits if practised by most people", wrote Dr.Cheng and colleagues, in the Lancet. Dr.Ruben is gathering selfies of people wearing and then without masks which she plans to use as a database for experiments where 'perceivers' will be asked their initial impression of the people in the photos.

Societal attitudes in North America toward wearing masks in public as protection against COVID-19 have undergone an 'unprecedented' shift in just a matter of months, one social psychologist says. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)