Embodied Impact of Facial Coverings: Triggering Self-Expression Needs to Drive Conspicuous Preferences

Although prior research has examined how facial covering affects observers’ cognition and attitude, the psychological experiences of individuals with facial coverings themselves and their subsequent behavioral consequences still need to be more explored. From the embodied cognition perspective, we propose facial covering as a direct external stimulus, triggering a psychological gap between the current level of self-expression needs and the diminished self-expression pathways. Using face masks as a specific form of facial covering, five experiments were conducted in China. The results reveal that under facial covering, the surfaced need for self-expression can be transformed into the consumer preference for conspicuousness; and the self-construal type moderates this effect, with independent self-construals exhibiting a stronger covering-induced need for self-expression and subsequent conspicuous preferences compared to interdependent self-construals. The research makes a contribution by enriching the new perspective on the theoretical impact of facial covering. Practically, this research can also provide actionable insights for enterprises in the realms of marketing strategy design and behavior interventions.