Correction: Responses to the Islamic headscarf in everyday interactions depend on sex and locale: A field experiment in the metros of Brussels, Paris, and Vienna on helping and involvement behaviors.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254927.].

People interact closer when a face mask is worn but risk compensation is at best partial.

BACKGROUND: Wearing a face mask and keeping a minimal distance from others are common nonpharmaceutical interventions that governments may mandate or recommend to contain the spread of infectious diseases. The article addresses the following questions: (i) Do people interact closer when the face mask is worn? (ii) Do people interact closer because they believe that the mask reduces the risk of contagion? (iii) If the mask induces people to interact closer, does the increase in risk entailed by shorter distances entirely offset the decrease in risk offered by the mask? METHODS: With a view to maximizing both the external and the internal validity of the study, between 2021 and 2022 we performed a large field experiment on real-life interactions (n > 4500) and a controlled laboratory experiment in virtual reality. RESULTS: Converging between the field and the lab, the results indicate that in general people interact closer when the mask is worn, and in particular when they believe that the mask reduces the risk of contagion. However, even assuming a very low filtration efficacy and an extremely large distance-reducing effect of the mask, the counteracting effect of shorter interpersonal distances is never strong enough to entirely offset the mask's protection. CONCLUSION: The distance-reducing effect of the mask is real but warrants no serious objection against a face mask policy.

Face Mask Use Conditionally Decreases Compliance With Physical Distancing Rules Against COVID-19: Gender Differences in Risk Compensation Pattern.

BACKGROUND: In the context of the COVID-19 emergency, the concern has been raised that people may compensate the reduction in risk ensured by mask use with an increase in risk induced by lower adherence to physical distancing rules. PURPOSE: The paper investigates if people compensate risk in this manner when their interaction partner wears a face mask, examining if risk compensation further depends on gender, signaled social status and perceived race. METHODS: An experiment was conducted in two waves (June, n = 1396 and September 2020, n = 1326) in front of the traffic lights of four busy roads in Paris. A confederate asked a randomly selected pedestrian for directions following a script and keeping the recommended distance. Confederates were locally recognizable as Blacks or Whites and alternatively presented themselves with a costume indicative of high or low social status. An observer recorded whether the pedestrian kept the recommended distance. RESULTS: Both in June and September, men are less likely to comply with the distancing rule when the confederate wears the face mask, and particularly so when the confederate signals high status. When the confederate wears the mask, female pedestrians observe less the one-meter rule in September than in June. CONCLUSIONS: Men's risk compensatory behavior is constant over time. In contrast, women's depends on the time period.

Responses to the Islamic headscarf in everyday interactions depend on sex and locale: A field experiment in the metros of Brussels, Paris, and Vienna on helping and involvement behaviors.

The Islamic headscarf has been in the middle of heated debates in European society, yet little is known about its influence on day-to-day interactions. The aim of this randomized field experiment (n = 840) is to explore how the generally negative views that surround the hijab in Europe manifest in the behavior that people direct to hijab-wearing women in everyday situations. Using a helping scenario and videotapes of the resulting interactions, we measured whether passengers offered assistance and also various details of behavior that indicate interpersonal involvement. We predicted that in interaction with the covered confederate less help would be offered, that women's level of nonverbal involvement would increase but men's decrease, and that responses would be stronger in Paris, intermediate in Brussels, and weaker in Vienna. We analyzed the data using Generalized Linear Models estimated with Bayesian inference. While the headscarf does not produce concluding differences in "overt" helping, it does affect "subtle" cues of interpersonal involvement. In response to the hijab, women across sites increase, but men in Paris decrease, the level of involvement that they show with their nonverbal behavior.