The research found that a blue medical face mask can make you more appealing to your partner. Attraction is a fickle force and it varies among different people. One particular quality may mean nothing to someone else. But some common personality traits can click most couples. For example, physical appearance is a common pique of interest in most potential partners. Similarly wearing a certain dress or accessories can instantly make you appear more striking to your partner.
What does the study say?
The journal Cognitive Research Principles and Implications has published a research report where they tried to find an association between the face mask and physical appeal to the opposite sex. A group of researchers has examined the impact of face masks. For the last two years, many people worldwide are using face masks to protect against COVID-19.
For this research purpose, the researchers gathered a group of 43 women. These women ranked the attractiveness of male faces in a series of images. They had to rank the images based on different faces in different color masks. The test was conducted in the U.K. in 2021 when face coverings became mandatory in public. So, female partners find male partners more attractive in face masks.
Some interesting findings
The study results showed some interesting points too. It showed that even wearing a cloth mask made someone more attractive than not wearing anything at all. Lewis said “We also found faces are considered significantly more attractive when covered by cloth masks than when not covered,” Then Lewis added, “Some of this effect may be a result of being able to hide undesirable features in the lower part of the face—but this effect was present for both less attractive and more attractive people.”
Psychologist Michael Lewis said about the research, “Research carried out before the pandemic found medical face masks reduce attractiveness—so we wanted to test whether this had changed since face coverings became ubiquitous and understand whether the type of mask had any effect.”