The meaning of the Masks

When you are wearing a mask, what is your purpose?
Maybe it's to scare a friend. Maybe it's to have fun at a party.
But the real purpose is to hide your face. To be exact, make others think you're someone else.

A Persona is a character you put out for the world to see. The part of you that you want everyone else to see.

It's a kind of mask. It's to cover parts of you you don't think others will like.

In Persona 5, the characters rip off their masks to unleash their power.
This represents them not hiding anymore and showing their true form to the world, regardless of their defects.

Persona 4 puts more meaning to this. In the game, the characters, in the shadow world, need to face their own shadows, which is basically themselves, but the actual them. The one that has all of the defects the characters are trying to hide from the world.
To get their power, they need to face their shadow and accept that they are a part of them.