Negative attitudes about facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic: The dual importance of perceived ineffectiveness and psychological reactance

  1. Steven Taylor
  2. Gordon J. G. Asmundson

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Abstract

This study reports a comprehensive empirical investigation of the nature and correlates of anti-mask attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accumulating evidence underscores the importance of facemasks, as worn by the general public, in limiting the spread of infection. Accordingly, mask wearing has become increasingly mandatory in public places such as stores and on public transit. Although the public has been generally adherent to mask wearing, a small but vocal group of individuals refuse to wear masks. Anti-mask protest rallies have occurred in many places throughout the world, sometimes erupting violently. Few empirical studies have examined the relationship between anti-mask attitudes and mask non-adherence and little is known about how such attitudes relate to one another or other factors (e.g., non-adherence to social distancing, anti-vaccination attitudes). To investigate these issues, the present study surveyed 2,078 adults from the US and Canada. Consistent with other surveys, we found that most (84%) people wore masks because of COVID-19. The 16% who did not wear masks scored higher on most measures of negative attitudes towards masks. Network analyses indicated that negative attitudes about masks formed an intercorrelated network, with the central nodes in the network being (a) beliefs that masks are ineffective in preventing COVID-19, and (b) psychological reactance (PR; i.e., an aversion to being forced to wear masks). These central nodes served as links, connecting the network of anti-masks attitudes to negative attitudes toward SARSCoV2 vaccination, beliefs that the threat of COVID-19 has been exaggerated, disregard for social distancing, and political conservatism. Findings regarding PR are important because, theoretically, PR is likely to strengthen other anti-masks attitudes (e.g., beliefs that masks are ineffective) because people with strong PR react with anger and counter-arguments when their beliefs are challenged, thereby leading to a strengthening of their anti-mask beliefs. Implications for improving mask adherence are discussed.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0246317
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.17.20233585: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: All respondents provided written informed consent prior to completing the survey.
    IRB: The research described in this article was approved by the Research Ethics Board of the University of Regina (REB# 2020-043).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The present study has various strengths and limitations. In terms of strengths, the sample was large and the present study was, to our knowledge, the first to use network analysis to understand the interrelationships among anti-mask attitudes and their relationships to other variables that have been shown to influence attitudes and behavior in the context of pandemics. A further strength of the present study was that, compared to previous surveys, the present study examined a larger number of different types of anti-mask attitudes as they related to mask-wearing and other variables. A limitation is that not all possible anti-mask attitudes were assessed. Future research is needed to investigate anti-masks attitudes that were not investigated in the present study. For example, the present study did not assess the belief that mask-wearing is a sign of weakness, which was an attitude voiced in an Ohio anti-mask rally (63). The replicability of the findings across different countries and cultures also remains to be investigated in future research. A further limitation is that network analysis, as a statistical modeling method, is insufficient for determining the causal nature of the relationships between nodes. Nevertheless, the present findings provide a strong rationale for conducting future experimental studies on the causal status of mask-related PR and beliefs that masks are ineffective. The present study also underscores the importance of conducting future research to inves...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.17.20233585v1 on medRxiv