In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Hlne Barcelo , the deputy director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, was strolling around a park when she spotted a family of four all masked up. Well, almost all masked up: The mum was wearing a protective covering. So, too, were the children. But the fathers mask was hanging from his neck.

Barcelo is currently studying face mask usage, so the scene at the park piqued her interest. Later on, she brought it up when Skyping with her colleague Valerio Capraro , a senior lecturer in economics at Middlesex University in London.

When I mentioned it, Valerio shared a similar story, Barcelo told HuffPost. He lives in London and saw several couples where the female was wearing a mask, while the male was not. So, we thought: Perhaps theres something in there, with men.

Spurred on by what they saw, the pair recently released a study that probes why men are more mask-resistant. The researchers polled 2,459 US participants and found that men were more likely to opt out of wearing masks, believing them to be shameful, a sign of weakness, and not cool in spite of the data showing that men are at higher risk than women of dying from a coronavirus infection.

The researchers also found that men were less likely than women to believe they would be seriously affected by the coronavirus.

This was quite unexpected and somewhat ironic, given the fact that official statistics show that men are more likely than women to die from COVID-19, Barcelo said.

Equally surprising to the researchers is that in counties where wearing a face mask was mandatory, those gender differences almost disappeared, though men still expressed the same negative emotions toward masks.

In other words, in counties where wearing a face mask is mandatory, men dislike wearing it as they do in counties where wearing a face mask is not mandatory, but at least it increases their intentions to wear it, she said.

Thats an especially important takeaway, given how slow some government officials have been to enact mask mandates and even to mask up themselves.

In spite of the CDCs recommendation to wear masks in public places, Vice President Mike Pence notoriously went maskless while touring the Mayo Clinic facilities that support COVID-19 research and treatment. Though he later said he regretted the decision , his mask usage has still been spotty since .