BACKROADS • JULY 2021
O N T H E MAR K MARK BYERS
THE VALUE OF A SMILE In a 1971 Stanford study, a psychology professor asked 12 men to serve as prisoners and 12 as guards in a simulated jail. He planned to observe psychological changes over the course of two weeks, but the behavior of the men assigned to act as guards became so sadistic, and the prisoners’ mental health so compromised, that the experiment was suspended after just six days. One of the key things that transformed those acting as “guards” into monsters? Mirrored sunglasses that hid their eyes. For hundreds of years, people have understood that occluding a portion of a person’s face is key to changing their behavior. Masks have been used for centuries to create anonymity and hence, lack of accountability: if you were beheaded in medieval times, chances are the headsman wore a mask. Masks have traditionally been used by criminals to hide their identities while they were committing their crimes, making later identification by their victims difficult or impossible. A 1979 Purdue study showed that about two-thirds of the children who were wearing Halloween masks broke rules versus a third of those who were unmasked. My intent is not to engage in debate about the efficacy ofmasks as a pandemic mitigator, but rather to relate personal observations from the early days of the “recovery.” From a psychological standpoint, masks have definitely changed both my behavior and my perception of others. I didn’t realize one of the key facets for me until just prior to the Backroads
Page 5 Spring Break, when the CDC removed their recommendation for mask wearing for those who were vaccinated. After just a day of being around more people who were without covered faces, I realized the incredible value of…a smile. I felt lighter somehow (my post-COVID girth notwithstanding). For fourteen months, the vast majority of people I saw in public had covered faces. During that time, when I encountered someone in passing, I had no idea of their reaction to me, nor they of mine. I would try to “smile with my eyes” but it may have been perceived as anything from a case of myopic squinting to an outright sneer. Humans rely a great deal on body language, whether we realize it or not, and taking away such an expressive part of that equation as the face is really dehumanizing. As a motor official for bicycle races, I’m encouraged to use a modular “flip-front” helmet. Raising that chin bar not only allows us to speak without being muffled, but it allows the messages to be delivered with a smile. From the cyclists’ standpoint, the message is being delivered by a person and not just an anonymous entity behind a mirrored visor and a chin bar. Many an agitated competitor’s demeanor has been changed with a thoughtful explanation of a sanction or a rule. I find it much easier to build a rapport with a peloton with the chinbar up. I also noticed that I perceived the hotels who had embraced a more mask-free environment as having better atmospheres and better customer service, irrespective of whether their employees were required to do so or not. At one, where our waitress was maskless, it was really neat to see her smile in reaction to our silly antics - it was much easier to build that rapport. As a job recruiter, I’ve noticed the value of a smile: two times in the past month I have re-interviewed people who were judged as “quirky” or “too
