Abstract: Mandatory and voluntary mask policies may have yet unknown social and behavioral consequences related to the effectiveness of the measure, stigmatization, and perceived fairness. Serial cross-sectional data (04/14-05/26/20) from nearly 7,000 German participants demonstrate that implementing a mandatory policy increased actual compliance despite moderate acceptance; mask wearing correlated positively with other protective behaviors. A preregistered experiment (n = 925) further indicates that a voluntary policy would likely lead to insufficient compliance, would be perceived as less fair, and could intensify stigmatization. A mandatory policy appears to be an effective, fair, and socially responsible solution to curb transmissions of airborne viruses.
Acknowledgments: Germany’s COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) is a joint project of the University of Erfurt (Cornelia Betsch (PI), Lars Korn, Philipp Sprengholz, Philipp Schmid, Lisa Felgendreff, Sarah Eitze), the Robert Koch Institute (Lothar H. Wieler, Patrick Schmich), the Federal Centre for Health Education (Heidrun Thaiss, Freia De Bock), the Leibniz Centre for Psychological Information and Documentation (Michael Bosnjak), Science Media Center (Volker Stollorz), the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Michael Ramharter), and the Yale Institute for Global Health (Saad Omer).
