15 Aug Why Some People Refuse to Wear Masks
We see them everyday, endangering others (and themselves), walking around town, shopping in our stores, eating in our restaurants, biking at high speeds. They are the People Who Refuse to Wear Masks. And why? We curated this analysis by Brittany Wong from the Huff Post.
Absent a vaccine or medication, the only solution we have to combat COVID-19 is to wear a mask.
Even so, some people are resistant to the idea. Controversy over mask usage intensified as states began to reopen and ease up social distancing restrictions ― and then closed down again after recent spikes in new coronavirus cases.
The decision is an easy one for the pro-mask camp: “It’s a piece of cloth!” they argue. “What’s so hard about wearing it? You have a responsibility, as a potential asymptomatic carrier, to not endanger others!”
But non-mask wearers won’t bend. “A mandate encroaches on my personal freedom; it’s my individual right to not wear one.”
How did protective masks become so politicized? We’re quick to put on a seatbelt to protect ourselves and others, so what is about the mask that works people into a tizzy? (On both sides, to be honest; pro-mask Americans are just as fervent in this fight. In Orange County, California, pro-maskers put their personal safety on the line to urge local government to reinstate mask ordinances. Naturally, “anti-mask protesters” were there to meet them.)
David B. Abrams, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the School of Global Public Health at New York University, said the stridency of opinions and extreme polarization over masks can be chalked up to one thing: Because this virus and pandemic feels so unfamiliar, we’re clinging hard to whatever makes us feel safe in the moment.
“Humans, like other primates and other mammals, have a strong inherent, underlying survival instinct that gets hyper-stimulated under sudden threat of an unknown enemy,” he told HuffPost. “This leads to what psychologists call ‘hot cognition’ with a strong and powerful set of emotions that completely override and erase the usual rational cool thinking.”
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