I always find myself smiling behind my mask and realize people can’t see me smiling, and then feel like people think I’m just staring them. This is a really timely study!!!!

I agree with Haylee – I, too, find myself smiling at people and when the mask comes up almost over my eyes no one can tell! This is definitely a timely study and I think there can be a lot to unpack with the social anxiety main effect.

Since you had an approximately equal number of those in the high and low anxiety groups, it sounds like you did a median split to categorize them. Do you have any sense of whether those who you categorized into these groups actually were high or low in social anxiety? I have used this scale before and know it’s difficult to find people in the upper and lower ranges!

I wonder if people just assumed that non-mask video clip took place before COVID. I find myself watching pre-COVID movies or TV shows and being amazed that all these people can be so close to each other without masks! But it would only make me anxious or worried for them if I knew they were doing this in the time of COVID.

Super interesting study and something I had not ever thought about. I would agree that it is difficult to determine what emotion someone is conveying just by looking at their eyes. I know they make masks now that have a transparent spot built in near the mouth region. I wonder what the results would be if these were the types of masks the people in the video were wearing.

I really enjoyed hearing about your study! COVID is creating a lot of new social situations for all of us, which can be especially distressing for people who have social anxiety. I think you have some great ideas for future directions that might get at your research questions more directly!

This is a cool study! I found it interesting that people will lower anxiety were more anxious when viewing the footage! I would have thought the opposite! I remember participating in this study on SONA and it’s crazy how nowadays a person in a mask can set off someones anxiety. One year ago we wouldn’t have thought twice about seeing someone in a mask! This was a really cool study.

As soon as I saw the title of this study, I clicked on it, this is such an interesting idea. I absolutely agree with Dr. Liss, I find myself wondering why people in TV shows and movies aren’t wearing masks – even in things like Pride and Prejudice where it’s obviously not contemporary. I personally have trouble telling what emotion someone is portraying even without a mask, so I can see why you wanted to study this.

I found it interesting how people look in the eye region to detect emotion because they can’t see it behind a face mask, I often smile behind my mask thinking people can see it. I found it interesting how participants who engaged in almost any social form of transmission mitigation anxiety than those who engaged in nonsocial transmission mitigation. Professor Liss, I told my sister that the other day how I watch TV now and wonder why people don’t have a mask on.