The elaboration of the negative stereotype of the person with AIDS

Abstract

This thesis examined the negative two-factor stereotype of the person with AIDS. The three interrelated aims of the thesis were: first, to examine and if possible to elaborate the stereotype identified by Walkey, Taylor, and Green (1990); second, to produce a psychometrically sound semantic-differential questionnaire for assessing this stereotype; and third, to examine and compare the responses of a sample of university students with those of a group of General Practitioners in relation to this stereotype. Three predictions were examined: that a negative stereotype would be found among both students and General Practitioners, that contact with a person with AIDS would moderate this stereotype among General Practitioners, and that there would be gender differences in the valence of the stereotype for the student sample. Initial results confirmed that two main factors comprised the stereotype: Moral Worth which further resolved into two subfactors, Acceptability and Empathic Engagement, and Power, which contained two subfactors, Effectuality and Emotional Engagement. The factor structure was imperfectly replicated in a further independent sample of students and a modified structure suggested. This modified factor structure was replicated in a sample of General Practitioners. Evaluatively, the stereotype was negative across the two quite different groups, students and General Practitioners, but less so in the latter group. Gender differences in the student sample were not strongly evident, but did indicate that males were more negative towards the person with AIDS on the moral worth dimension. General practitioners who had had contact with a person with AIDS were less negative than those who had not. In the main, results supported the three predictions.