Studies show mask wearers believe in science

Mask on or mask off? That depends on your trust in science, according to a study first published online in February. Doctoral students Morgan Stosic and Shelby Helwig and Assistant Psychology Professor Mollie Ruben, Ph.D., from the University of Maine set out to determine three things: the greater the belief in science, the greater the mask wearing; mask wearing is equated with the belief in its effectiveness against Covid-19; and mask wearing also determines the belief in its protection against virus transmission.
Based on this theory, they asked questions in a 10-item “Belief in Science” scale to determine how participants valued scientific information. They contacted more than 1,600 participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a crowdsour...