A sample of 227 undergraduate students was administered pre-intervention paper-and-pencil questionnaires to assess homophobia, fear of AIDS contagion, symbolic representations of AIDS and homosexuality, and specific personality attributes including authoritarianism, religiosity, and conservatism. Participants then read one of eight intervention vignettes about an ill person; these vignettes varied by sexual orientation of the patient, disease (AIDS versus lung cancer), and mode of transmission (in the AIDS conditions). Participants then completed post-intervention measures assessing the degree to which the ill person in the vignette was responsible and to blame for his illness, the level of stigma toward him, and concerns about social interactions with him. Results indicate the following: a) Attributions of personal responsibility are primarily a function of mode of illness transmission; b) fear of AIDS contagion is predictive of stigma and social avoidance of PWAs; and c) AIDS-related stigma and attributions of blame are largely a function of symbolic associations between homosexuality and IV drug abuse (which were previously stigmatized) and AIDS.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc278400 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Henschel, Peter W. (Peter William) |
| Contributors | Guarnaccia, Charles Anthony, Engels, Dennis W., Burke, Angela J., Sewell, Kenneth W. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | v, 149 leaves, Text |
| Coverage | United States - Texas - Denton County - Denton, 1995 |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved., Henschel, Peter W. (Peter William) |
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