Personality Masks

Each year, students in PSY 226 (Personality Psychology) are invited to submit a personality mask for extra credit. These artistic works bridge art and social science by inviting students to collect data about how they are perceived by others, reflect on their own self-understandings and how these align with or depart from social representations, and convey their insights through visual art projects. Three masks are selected by a neutral party (not the instructor) as representing notable achievements in art and psychology and are displayed anonymously here for public viewing.

Spring, 2021

Exterior of Mask

Interior of Mask

“The mask I’ve created for my inner self is essentially identical to the mask I crafted for my outer self, the difference being that my inner mask isn’t fully coloured and brought to life… for the most part, the way that others view me is very similar to the way I view myself…I take pride in who I am and try to bring my most authentic self to every situation… my inner mask’s lack of colour reflects the parts of me that I am still trying to figure out… the doubts I have in myself… It represents my fear of failure or lack of perfection, my questions about the future and wondering what’s next.”

Exterior of Mask 1	Exterior of Mask 2	Exterior of Mask 3
Interior of Mask
“For the exterior of my mask, I sectioned it into ten different sections, the division of sections representing puzzle pieces of people’s perception of me that go together to create my public persona… The interior of the mask is quite different from the exterior. It features bright, bold colours contrasting against each other, symbolizing my view of my moodiness with the changing of the bold colours. The interior is also only 2D drawings, purposely done to represent my struggle of outwardly projecting my true self to others.”

Exterior of Mask	Interior of Mask
“The people that barely know me have only seen the surface of the mask… the people who know me well have seen part of the real me.”