The Masks We Wear: Facial Coverings and Perceived Instructor Ideology

Many Americans have expressed reluctance, even hostility, towards the government mandating the wearing of face coverings. Not surprisingly, these beliefs are highly correlated with partisanship and ideology. With this in mind, this project investigates the role that mask-wearing plays in how students perceive the ideology of their professors. Based on previous research on ideological projection (see Kelly-Woessner and Woessner (2006); Woessner and Kelly-Woessner (2009, 2020); Braidwood and Ausderan (2017; 2022); Woessner and Maranto (2021)), we expected that the wearing of a facial covering (i.e. a mask) will prime students to make ideological inferences regarding their instructor. Namely, we expected that, ceteris paribus, students will assume a mask-wearing professor is more liberal than the same professor who is maskless. Relying on student subjects and hypothetical professors, we designed an original survey experiment to measure the effect that mask wearing has on perceived instructor ideology. Contrary to expectations, we found mask wearing has no significant impact on students’ views of their instructors’ ideology.

许多美国民众对政府强制佩戴面部遮盖物（face coverings）表达了抵触乃至敌对的态度。不出所料，这类态度与党派身份和意识形态高度相关。有鉴于此，本研究探讨了佩戴口罩在学生认知其授课教授意识形态过程中所发挥的作用。基于此前关于意识形态投射（ideological projection）的相关研究（参见Kelly-Woessner与Woessner 2006年；Woessner与Kelly-Woessner 2009、2020年；Braidwood与Ausderan 2017、2022年；Woessner与Maranto 2021年），我们推测佩戴面部遮盖物（即口罩）会引导学生对授课教师做出意识形态层面的推断。换言之，我们推测在其他条件不变（ceteris paribus）的情况下，学生们会认为佩戴口罩的教授比不戴口罩的同一教授更为自由派。本研究以学生为实验被试，设置虚拟教授场景，设计了原创性调查实验以衡量佩戴口罩对学生感知教师意识形态所产生的影响。但与预期相悖的是，我们发现佩戴口罩并未对学生关于教师意识形态的认知产生显著影响。