Attitudes Toward AIDS-Related issues: Some Personal and Sociodemographic Determinants

In a sample of 2,655 young people between the ages of 15 to 30, three AIDS-related evaluative orientations were found: defensive, anti-normative, 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 anti-normative, 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 anti-defensive orientation were most likely in people who perceived AIDS as helping realization of conventional and hindering realization of hedonic goals. Defensive and anti-normative 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.