Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) or AIDS Related Complex (ARC) are no less intense than the physical pains. One could argue just the opposite: Not only are AIDS ...
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 1995, 16(1 & 2), 173-190 Copyright © 1995, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Attitudes Toward AIDS-Related Issues: Some Personal and Sociodemographic Determinants Radmila Prislin Texas A & M University
In a sample of 2,655 young people between the ages of 15 to 30, three AIDS-related evaluative orientations were found: defensive, antinormative, and support for individual rights of AIDS victims. Cognitive attitudinal components, operationalized according to the structural theory of attitude dynamics, were recognized as hedonic instrumentality and instrumentality for realization of conventional goals. A set of predictors referring to personal, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics, and characteristics of AIDS-relevant experience, produced R = .432 for defensive, R = .222 for antinormative, and R = .306 for individual-rights orientations. Cognitive variables were predicted less successfully. Socioeconomic and religious status and community size were the strongest predictors. Canonical analysis of the relation between evaluative and cognitive variables revealed two significant coefficients. Support for individual rights and normative regulation of AIDS-related issues and antidefensive orientation were most likely in people who perceived AIDS as helping realization of conventional and hindering realization of hedonic goals. Defensive and antinormative orientations and opposition to the rights of AIDS victims were most likely in people who perceived AIDS as being detrimental to realization of both hedonic and conventional goals.
The psychological throes of a person suffering from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) or AIDS Related Complex (ARC) are no less intense than the physical pains. One could argue just the opposite: Not only are AIDS patients aware of having an incurable disease, but, more than any other disease patients, they suffer from secondary victimization. Primary Requests for reprints should be sent to Radmila Prislin, Department of Psychology, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843-4235.
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victimization is an inevitable consequence of contracting a serious disease and describes the direct physical effects. Quite often, disease victims must also cope with negative social reactions from other people, exposing them to secondary victimization. It has been shown that many illnesses are accompanied by a risk of becoming a victim not only of primary but also of secondary victimization (E. E. Jones et al., 1984; Meyerowitz, Williams, & Gessner, 1987; Taylor, Wood, & Lichtman, 1983; Wortman & DunkelSchetter, 1979). The secondary victimization that accompanies AIDS is most often experienced as a lack of social support (Kegeles, Coates, Christopher, & Lazarus, 1989; Triplet & Sugarman, 1987). However, there are known cases of open hostility and aggression against AIDS patients. As shown by Pryor, Reeder, and Vinaco (1989), the psychological bases of such negative social reactions to persons with AIDS are attitudes serving either an instrumental (i.e., a concern about potential consequences of interacting with AIDSinfected persons) or a symbolic (i.e., a concern about what the disease symbolizes) function. Therefore, to understand and predict societal reactions toward AIDS victims, it is necessary to study attitudes toward AIDS-related issues. This view was recognized early in that the first studies of the problem were published less than 2 years after AIDS had been registered as a disease. In the period between 1983 and 1989, 986 psychological studies of AIDS-related problems were published in journals cited by Psychological Abstracts. Among them, 77 have focused on attitudes toward AIDS-relevant attitude objects (M. J. Jones, Kerby, & Landry, 1989). These studies have explored such attitude objects as personal concern about AIDS (Crawford, 1990; Goodwin & Roscoe, 1988; King & GuUone, 1990), attitudes toward AIDS-infected persons (St. Lawrence & Betts, 1989; Sturz et al., 1988; Walkey, Taylor, & Green, 1990; Witt, 1989), willingness to interact with AIDS victims and members of their families (Clift & Stears, 1988; Triplet & Sugarman, 1987), attitudes toward homosexuals and lesbians (Austin, Sung-Mook, & Hunter, 1989; Royse & Birge, 1987), attitudes toward drug addicts (Sturz et al., 1988), attitudes toward hemophiliacs (Agle, Gluck, & Pierce, 1987), and willingness to provide professional help to AIDS-infected persons (Cottone, Dove, Bebermeyer, & Molinari, 1989; Imperato, Feldman, Nayeri, & Dettowitz, 1988; Richardson, Lochner, McGuigan, & Levine, 1987). Moreover, many of these topics have been studied among several different populations: groups at risk, such as homosexuals and drug addicts (Des Jarlais & Friedman, 1987; Des Jarlais, Friedman, & Casriel, 1990; Friedman et al., 1987; Joseph et al., 1987; Mark, 1988); professionals, such as medical staff and social workers (D. Ajdukovic & M. Ajdukovic, 1990; M. Ajdukovic, 1989; Blumenfield, Smith, Milazzo, & Seropian, 1987; Dhooper, Royse, & Tran,
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1988; Douglas, Kalman, & Kalman, 1985; Kelly, St. Lawrence, Smith, Hood, & Cook, 1987; Mejta, Denton, Krems, & Hiatt, 1988; Pleck, O'Donnell, O*Donnell, & Snarey, 1988; Richardson et al., 1987); and people in cities known to be at considerable risk for being exposed to AIDS (DiClemente, Zorn, & Temoshok, 1986, 1987; Temoshok, Sweet, & Zich, 1987). Recently, it has been recognized that AIDS is not "a disease of special groups" such as homosexuals or intravenous drug users. The AIDS virus can, of course, attack anyone. Therefore, research should be conducted on all segments of the general population, including those who are young. Several characteristics of young people's behavior (e.g., less responsible sexual behavior, readiness to engage in various risky behaviors, tendency to yield to peer pressure) expose them to an increased danger of becoming infected by AIDS.
THIS STUDY This study was part of a research project started a few years ago. It was aimed at applying a model of AIDS prevention to Croatia. According to the model (D. Ajdukovic, M. Ajdukovic, & Prislin, 1992), attitudes are viewed as mediators between individual-psychological and sociodemographic variables and AIDS-relevant behavioral changes. Finding a set of predictors of attitudes toward AIDS-related issues is an important step in developing targeted preventive programs. Therefore, the problem of this study was to examine the relations between individual and sociodemographic antecedents and evaluative and cognitive attitudinal components. As opposed to most other studies in which attitudes have been operationalized as answers to a set of questions covering only evaluative reactions, usually toward a certain risk-group, we started from a two-dimensional model of attitude structure. Within the model, attitudes are thought of as structures comprising evaluative and cognitive components (Rosenberg, 1968). Evaluation refers to a favorable or an unfavorable orientation toward certain AIDSrelated issues. The cognitive component is defined in this approach as perceived instrumentality of an attitude object for realization of valued goals. We operationalized the cognitive component in relation to occurrence of AIDS. Mere occurrence of the disease has changed the way people think about a number of more specific issues. We hypothesize that the evaluative reactions to specific AIDS-related issues are associated with perceived instrumentality of this general object for realization of valued aims. Thus, the second goal of this study is to elucidate relations between the evaluative and cognitive attitudinal structures.
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Subjects The population was defined as young people between the ages of 15 and 30, living in the Republic of Croatia, in urban communities of various sizes, employed or attending school. A multistage cluster sampling consisting of seven levels (geographical region, community size, work position, sex, educational level, age, and type of college or high school for the students) was used. The number of respondents within each sampling level was defined on the basis of the census data. However, students and younger respondents (15 to 19 years) were somewhat oversampled. This was done intentionally to allow for adequate comparisons among different groups of subjects. This procedure resulted in 2,655 usable individual records (response rate of 96.5*70).
Attitude Questionnaire The first part of the instrument presented to subjects was an attitude questionnaire consisting of two parts aimed at measuring evaluative' and cognitive attitudinal components according to the structural theory of attitude dynamics (Rosenberg, 1960). Evaluative component. The evaluative attitudinal component was measured by a 19-item questionnaire, with subjects indicating their agreement or nonagreement with each item's contents using a 4-point, Likert-type scale ranging from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (4). Principalcomponents analysis of these 19 items produced three factors explaining 63.7
