Magic Johnson and Reactions to People With AIDS: A Natural Experiment1

On November 7, 1991, Earvin (“Magic”) Johnson, Jr., announced that he was HIV positive. At the time of this announcement, the authors had just finished collecting data on subjects’ willingness to help a person with the AIDS virus (PWA). These preannouncement data were compared to data collected 1 week, 2/12 months, and months after the announcement. It was predicted that in the week immediately after the disclosure, helping of the PWA would increase significantly, but, over time, helping would return to the preannouncement level. This hypothesis was confirmed; in the week following the announcement, the percentage of men who offered help and the amount of help offered by men and women increased significantly. Four and one-half months after the announcement, helping was back to preannouncement levels. No consistent pattern of changes in affective reactions to the PWA were found. The results were discussed within the context of Kelman's (1958) theory of the different processes of attitude and behavior change and Petty and Cacioppo's (1986) elaboration likelihood model of persuasion.     

Effects of Responsibility for Illness and Social Acceptability on Reactions to People With AIDS: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

In this research, we examined how responsibility for illness (defined as having taken or not taken health precautions prior to becoming ill) and the social acceptability of the situation in which one acquires a disease (defined as being a drug addict or a laboratory worker) affected how German and American students reacted to a person ill with AIDS. Reactions included respondents' emotional responses, their willingness to allocate resources, and their perceptions of the fairness or unfairness of the depicted individual's plight. Results indicated that respondents reacted more positively toward the other with AIDS, were willing to distribute more resources to him, and saw his plight as being more unfair when he was depicted as being less responsible for his illness and when he became HIV infected in a more socially acceptable manner. Respondents from Germany were consistently more positive in their reactions than respondents from the United States. Also, respondents from Germany took differences in the patient's social acceptability less into account in their reactions than did U.S. respondents. The results were interpreted in light of the different health-care structures utilized in the two cultures.     

Emotional Reactions to News Events1

This study was designed to determine (a) what dimensions underlie emotional reactions to news events, (b) whether these dimensions are independent, (c) whether reactions to major news events are similar for different groups of people, and (d) whether a simple method could be developed for evaluating emotional reactions to news events. Subjects rated the similarity of their emotional reactions to 20 page-one newspaper stories in a paired-comparison task. The data were multidimensionally scaled using the KYST computer program. Two dimensions emerged that accounted for 89% of the judgment variance: pleasure/displeasure and degree of arousal. Interpretation of these dimensions was verified using a semantic differential task. The two dimensions were not independent. They were related by a U-shaped function: News events farther from evaluative neutrality were judged more arousing. A second study with 40 news events and a different subject population replicated these findings. Subjects' ratings of news events on three scales (happy, important, and exciting) were sufficient to recover the KYST dimensions. The theoretical and practical implications of these. results are discussed.     

儿童在困难情景中的情绪反应

以80名二、五年级儿童为被试,采用临床访谈法,考察在困难情景中儿童的情绪反应,包括情绪类型、情绪表达、表达与否的理由和后继行为。结果表明:1)儿童报告羞愧/伤心多于生气,倾向于表达情绪,在解释是否表达情绪的原因时主要强洞自我保护和强调事实等理由,主要采取改变情景的后继行为。2)儿童倾向于表达生气,不表达羞愧/伤心。3)儿童对情绪反应各变量的认知还存在性别、年级和观众类型的个体差异。     

Victim-Blaming Tendency Toward People With AIDS Among College Students

Abstract

The victim-blaming tendency toward people with AIDS was examined in relation to gender, fraternity–sorority affiliation, classification (freshmen vs. others), religion (Catholic vs. others), and academic major (business college vs. others) in a survey of 818 students at a midwestern state university in the United States. Desired social distance from gay men and lesbians, the intervening variable in these relations, significantly mediated the indirect effect of fraternity–sorority affiliation, classification, and gender on the victim-blaming tendency. Gender and desired social distance were found to be significant direct determinants of the victim-blaming tendency toward people with AIDS. The study suggests that attitudes toward gay men and lesbians must change if attitudes toward people with AIDS are to change.     

Emotional Reactions to Interracial Achievement Outcomes1

Students interacted with a White or a Black partner on an achievement task. It was predicted that the anxiety elicited by interacting with an outgroup member would lead to amplified emotional reactions to achievement outcomes. Consistent with this prediction, emotional reactions to success were more positive with a Black partner than with a White partner, whereas emotional reactions to failure were more negative with a Black partner than with a White partner. In addition, under conditions of low public self-awareness, Black partners were given less credit for success and blamed more for failure than White partners. This prejudicial pattern of attributions disappeared under conditions of high public self-awareness.     

Emotional Reactions to Simulations of Auditory Hallucinations

There is variability on how auditory hallucinations (AH) impact individuals, ranging from distress to comfort. A systematic study of how simulations of AH impact a non-clinical sample can address not only how AH simulations influence the general public, but also inform how actual AH influence individuals. Utilizing 504 undergraduates, different simulations of AH were presented to examine their impact on emotions and identify moderating variables. The simulations increased negative affect and decreased positive affect. Sex of the participant and differing levels of duration, volume, and context of the simulation did not influence the magnitude of the emotional responses. However, simulations with derogatory content led to greater increased negative affect and decreased positive affect than simulations with benevolent/neutral content. These results suggest that the content of simulations have a substantial effect, which is pertinent to administering simulations for training purposes and implementing psychosocial rehabilitation programs for those who hallucinate.

特殊人群艾滋病行为干预的思考

艾滋病直接危害人类的健康,也对社会、政治、经济及人文伦理道德产生重大的负面影响。对艾滋病病人犯罪的监管问题,公安干警的职业暴露问题,都是目前司法实践中遇到的新课题。加强艾滋病患者违法监管,对特殊群体进行行为干预,是司法结构急待解决问题。     

特殊人群艾滋病行为干预的思考

艾滋病直接危害人类的健康,也对社会、政治、经济及人文伦理道德产生重大的负面影响.对艾滋病病人犯罪的监管问题,公安干警的职业暴露问题,都是目前司法实践中遇到的新课题.加强艾滋病患者违法监管,对特殊群体进行行为干预,是司法结构急待解决问题.     

Health Beliefs and Attitudes Toward People Living With HIV/AIDS

The present study was concerned with the relationship between health beliefs and attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS. Measures of attitudes toward people with HIV/AIDS, beliefs about the transmission of HIV, and health locus of control beliefs were completed by 128 undergraduate students. In general, subjects who believed that HIV was transmitted through normal social contact wanted to avoid contact with people with HIV/AIDS, and showed other negative attitudes, such as lack of sympathy and blame. They also believed that their health was influenced by powerful others and chance. The findings are discussed in terms of fear of contracting HIV and the tendency to blame the victim.     

Emotional Reactions to Menarche Among Mexican Women of Different Generations

This study explored the information received about menstruation by Mexican women as well as their reactions to menarche. The most important topics that teenagers, young women, and middle-aged women were informed about were menstrual hygiene and physiology. In contrast, senior citizens were more informed about hygiene and activity restrictions. Regarding their reactions to menarche, teenagers and young women reported being confused. Positive reactions were reported only by older women who had knowledge about menstruation prior to menarche. Finally, younger women were more likely to present ambivalent reactions to menarche, probably because they are exposed to mixed messages which are often contradictory, resulting in more confusion and ambivalence.     

Emotional Reactions to Health Status Changes and Emotional Well-Being Among HIV-Positive Persons with Limited Reading Literacy

People living with HIV-AIDS experience emotional distress in response to negative changes in their health status. The current study hypothesized that individuals with poorer health literacy skills would evidence greater emotional distress in response to negative changes in health status compared to persons with higher health literacy skills. HIV positive persons (N = 294) completed anonymous surveys that included measures of depression and social support and a subset of 98 participants completed two experimental vignettes depicting a person receiving test results showing an increase in HIV viral load (negative health changes) followed by a vignette suggesting decreased viral load (improved health changes). Responses to affective reactions and coping strategies indicated that persons with lower health literacy skills more strongly endorsed negative affective states and maladaptive coping strategies compared to persons with higher health literacy skills. In addition, lower health literacy was associated with greater symptoms of affective depression and poorer social support, whereas higher literacy was associated with greater negativistic thinking. Findings suggest the need for patient education and counseling regarding changes in health status among people living with HIV-AIDS, particularly persons with limited health literacy skills.     

Extending Psychotherapeutic Strategies to People With Disabilities

In the last decade mind-body strategies have evolved to extend possible counseling approaches to persons with disabilities. Using Beatrice A. Wright's principles of attention to individual needs, respect for situational complexities, and flexibility, the authors reflect on the work of Milton H. Erickson, from which modern mind-body counseling interventions can be traced. Included are strategies to develop rapport, the therapeutic use of imagery, reframing and other paradoxical techniques, and the use of metaphor in counseling with people with disabilities.     

Phasic Emotional Reactions to Video Game Events: A Psychophysiological Investigation

To investigate whether interactivity enhances entertainment in interdependence with individual factors, an experiment with a 3 × 2 between_subject design was conducted. 427 participants aged between 14 and 49 were randomly assigned to a 30_minute TV movie with three different interactivity levels and two different introductions that should diversify feelings of sympathy toward the protagonist. Dependent variables like empathy with the protagonist, suspense, and movie evaluation were measured after exposure, and some were measured during exposure. A number of personality scales were also presented at the beginning of each session. The results indicate that individuals with lesser cognitive capacity feel more entertained, that is, they feel more empathic toward the protagonist, feel more suspense, and evaluate the movie more positively when they watch it without any interactivity, in the traditional passive manner. For individuals with greater cognitive capacity, it is just the opposite: They can use interactivity to their advantage. An increase in their entertainment experience was observed as a direct consequence of their being able to influence the plot of the movie.     

The Effect of Emotional Reactions upon Retention

Studies pertaining to recovery of function following either serial ablations or early brain damage were reviewed. In general, serial damage leads to greater functional sparing than simultaneous damage to the same area. Similarly, brain damage sustained early in the developmental history of the organism is less traumatic in terms of subsequent behavior than later injury. Variables relevant to the generality of the phenomena were emphasized, and possible avenues for future investigation were suggested.     

Studies of Emotional Reactions VI. Cardiac Responses

Wild-strain male house mice were fostered at birth onto conspecifics, deer mice, or domestic Norway rats. In adulthood, their flesh-eating preferences were tested by allowing them to feed from freshly asphyxiated conspecifics and either deer mice or rats. The mice ate significantly more conspecific flesh than contraspecific flesh, except when the flesh offered was that of the contraspecies upon which the mouse had been fostered at birth. The failure of cross-species-fostered mice to discriminate between their own species and their foster species in flesh-preference tests is attributed to their having learned early in life to respond to the foster species in the same way they normally respond to conspecifics, that is, by approaching them, investigating them, and, when finding them dead, feeding upon them.     

疑似艾滋病者的自我实现

“疑似艾滋病”问题具有复杂的社会和心理背景.以社会学的“自我实现预言”理论对疑似艾滋病问题进行了分析:疑似艾滋病者基于高危行为、恐惧心理和染上艾滋病的可能性;预测和相信自己染上了艾滋病;并以上述三个方面当作自己已染上艾滋病的证据;从而陷入了自我实现预言的陷阱.