Fear of AIDS: self-reports of Australian children and adolescents

Using a self-report questionnaire, we assessed fear of AIDS in Australian children and adolescents. Recently, the participants had been subjected to a community education program featuring frightening televised advertisements. A high level of fear was reported by 65.9% of the respondents. Girls reported a significantly greater mean fear than boys. Fear of AIDS was not significantly influenced by developmental factors. Given the design and measures, it was not possible to specify the origins of the fear response.     

Magical Contagion Beliefs and Fear of AIDS1

Extreme overreaction to nonrisky contact with persons with AIDS is considered to be a case of the operation of the sympathetic magical law of contagion. Prior work has shown that this principle (once in contact, always in contact) holds in the belief systems of American adults. In this paper, we show that four characteristics of this law correspond to the attitudes of college students toward AIDS: (a) actual physical contact is a critical factor in determining negative reactions, (b) even very brief contact is capable of transmitting substantial negative properties (dose insensitivity), (c) the effects of even brief contact are long lasting (permanence), and (d) the effects of contact can occur in a direction opposite to that of the normal causal arrow (backward contagion). We conclude that the magical law of contagion provides a useful way of formulating overconcern about the transmission of AIDS.     

Scales for Measuring Fear of AIDS and Homophobia

Two scales, one for measuring attitudes toward the fear of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and one for measuring attitude toward homosexuality, were constructed using Thurstone's method of equal-appearing intervals. After construction, the scales were given to 528 students at the University of Texas at Austin in the fail of 1985 to determine their respective reliabilities. Factor analyses were also done to determine what factors underlie the attitudes measured by the two scales and to determine if fear of AIDS and homophobia are in fact simply two facets of the same attitude: fear of homosexuals. The results indicated high reliabilities of both scales and a relatively low correlation between the two scales suggesting that the scales do measure different attitudes.     

Fear of AIDS: Its meaning and implications for clinical practice

Clinical reports have appeared about patients who present for mental health treatment with the major symptom of fearing that they have AIDS. The clinical reports of patients who fear AIDS are similar to those made many years ago by patients who feared syphilis. As with the syphilophobia of years ago, the AIDS group represents a divergent set of patients. Some can be described as the worried well who have realistic concerns because of a recent history of high risk behavior; others have unrealistic fears that are secondary to a major mental disorder such as hypochondriasis, depression, or schizophrenia. Suggestions are made to psychotherapists who encounter patients presenting with the problem of fearing AIDS.The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association     

Reading About AIDS and Cognitive Coping Style: Their Effects on Fear of AIDS and Homophobia

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of reading about AIDS on fear of AIDS, knowledge of AIDS, and homophobia. Introductory psychology students read one of three magazine articles: one stressing the low likelihood of contracting AIDS through casual contact (reassuring article), one stressing the high likelihood of contracting AIDS through casual contact (alarming article), or a control article that did not mention AIDS. Compared to the control group, subjects who read the reassuring article were lower in fear of AIDS, whereas subjects who read the alarming article were higher; the articles had no effect on knowledge of AIDS or homophobia. In addition, subjects were classified on the basis of their cognitive coping style (high vs. low monitors) and sex. High monitors tended to be more fearful of AIDS but were neither better informed about AIDS nor more homophobic than low monitors. Men were more fearful of AIDS and more homophobic than women.     

Counseling Persons with a Fear of AIDS

The increasing incidence of AIDS has created a societal fear of AIDS that, in turn, has raised the level of fear and anxiety in individuals prone to fear responses. Fears accentuated by AIDS are discussed and guidelines for counseling offered.     

Demographic Variables Associated with Fear of AIDS and Homophobia

During the fall of 1985, over 500 introductory psychology students participated in a survey which employed different questionnaires to measure Fear of AIDS, Knowledge of AIDS, Homophobia, and Behavior Change. Opinions about public policy regarding AIDS and homosexuals, and background information such as sex and religious preference were also obtained. The results indicated that males who knew the most about AIDS were less fearful of the disease than were males who knew the least. No such relationship was found for females. In addition, respondents reported that they have been changing their behavior in light of the AIDS epidemic. This included some behaviors which were related to AIDS and some which were not. Finally, political and religious conservatives were generally more homophobic and fearful of AIDS than were liberals. In addition, conservatives generally preferred protection of the public as an approach to controlling the AIDS epidemic while liberals generally preferred to educate the public.     

Mortality Salience and Perceptions of People with AIDS: Understanding the Role of Prejudice

Study 1 examined the perceived association of AIDS and death by showing that thinking about AIDS increased participants'; death-thought accessibility. Hypotheses about the consequences of this association for perceptions of people with AIDS were derived from terror management theory, which proposes that mortality salience increases derogation of those who threaten people's worldviews unless those worldviews oppose prejudice, in which case mortality salience can increase acceptance of people who are otherwise threatening. Consistent with these hypotheses, conservative participants had less favorable impressions (Study 2) and liberal participants had more favorable impressions (Study 3) of a target with AIDS following a death reminder. Study 4 suggested that the decrease in prejudice among liberals following mortality salience was a genuine decrease in prejudice (as indicated by responses to an unobtrusive attitude measure), not just an increase in the desire to appear nonprejudiced. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Biotechnology and the New Right: Neoconservatism's Red Menace

Although the neoconservative movement has come to dominate American conservatism, this movement has its origins in the old Marxist Left. Communists in their younger days, as the founders of neoconservatism, inverted Marxist doctrine by arguing that moral values and not economic forces were the primary movers of history. Yet the neoconservative critique of biotechnology still borrows heavily from Karl Marx and owes more to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger than to the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith. Loath to identify these sources—or perhaps unaware of them—neoconservatives do not acknowledge these intellectual underpinnings or their implications. Thus, in the final analysis, their critique is incoherent and even internally inconsistent. By not acknowledging and embracing their intellectual roots, neoconservatives are left with a deeply ambivalent and often confused view of biotechnology and the society that gives rise to it.     

Fear of future illness, chemical AIDS, and cancerphobia: a review.

A review of the literature indicates that fear of future illness shares many characteristics with a wide variety of conditions. Concepts such as hypochondriasis, adjustment disorders, generalized anxiety, and mass hysteria must be considered. Also, factors such as reporting bias, influential others, collective behavior, political groups, and litigation appear to induce symptom reporting from patients complaining of fear of illness and cancerphobia. Cancerphobia may result in impairment ranging from avoidance behaviors to cognitive dysfunctions. Various treatment modalities have been used successfully in treating cancerphobia, and the prognosis is typically good. Complaints of chemical AIDS, universal allergy, or twentieth century disease have little medical or empirical support and require further investigation. Researchers and clinicians must recognize multiple factors contribute to fear of future illness or cancerphobic complaints, and additional research must be undertaken if a thorough understanding of fear of future illness, cancerphobia, and perceptions of chemical AIDS is to be obtained.     

Perceptions of the Onset Controllability of AIDS and Helping Judgments: An Attributional Analysis1

Weiner's attributional model of helping behavior is used to examine the relationship between the perceived controllability of the onset of AIDS, the affective reactions of pity and anger, and helping judgments. In this model, the effect of the perceived controllability of another person's need on helping is mediated by pity and anger. In the present study, respondents read one of five scenarios describing a friend who had just been diagnosed with AIDS. The cause of the disease was manipulated in the scenarios. Knowledge about HIV transmission measures and respondent's gender were added as control variables to the original model, which was tested by using path analysis. The findings partially support Weiner's model. The effect of the perceived onset controllability of AIDS on helping judgments was mediated by pity, but not by anger. Respondents' anger toward a friend with AIDS did not inhibit help-giving.     

Changes in Fear of AIDS and Homophobia in a University Population

A survey measuring attitudes toward fear of AIDS and homophobia, taken in the fall of 1985, was repeated in the fall of 1989 on the same university population. The results indicated that whereas fear of AIDS decreased, the degree of homophobia remained essentially unchanged. In addition, although respondents were much more knowledgeable about AIDS in 1989 than in 1985, there was no evidence of any change in the relatively high correlation between the fear of AIDS and homophobia.     

The Menace of Non-Being

In the face of unremitting faith in economic progress and the attendant environmental degradation that is, increasingly, one of its ugly fruits, Jürgen Moltmann’s rich conception of God’s Sabbath peace offers a compelling reorientation. When drawn upon for its contribution toward the fostering of one’s moral imagination and for the cultivation of ethical criteria, it offers an accessible yet rigorous lens through which to view a particular situation: the attempt by Nestlé Waters to build the largest bottled water plant in North America. The author finds within Moltmann’s vision a way to critically assess the project, critique the underlying foundations of its character, and offer alternatives for seeking the flourishing of the whole of God’s creation.     

Fear of AIDS and Homophobia Scales in an ethnic population of university students

This replication extended R. A. Bouton et al.'s (1987) Fear of AIDS and Homophobia Scales to an ethnic sample of university students in an attempt to understand the relation between the expression of fear of HIV/AIDS and homophobia in ethnic groups. The results of the present study suggest that ethnic groups have a greater fear of HIV/AIDS, as they were more homophobic than the sample surveyed by R. A. Bouton et al. Although the correlation between fear of AIDS and homophobia was significant, results suggest the relation between them is weaker than it was 20 years prior to the present study. The ethnic populations represented in this study did not have greater fear of AIDS by gender. Considering ethnicity, female and male participants showed significant differences in homophobia. As in the original study, male participants were more homophobic than were female participants.     

The Effects of Fear of AIDS and Gender on Responses to Fear-Arousing Condom Advertisements

The effects of message fear arousal, fear of AIDS, and gender on attitudinal responses to condom advertisements were tested in a laboratory experiment. Ninety-five male and 96 female college students, previously assessed for fear of getting AIDS, rated the effectiveness of 1 of 4 high-fear or 4 low-fear condom ads in motivating them to buy the product. Contrary to prediction, the high-fear condom ads did not significantly differ from low-fear ads in effectiveness. The prediction that subjects' fear of AIDS would interact with ad fear level was also not supported. However, subjects with a high fear of getting AIDS viewed ads as more effective than did low-fear subjects. As predicted, male subjects viewed ads as more effective than did women. Results support the health belief model's tenet that a sense of vulnerability facilitates acceptance of a message. Implications of the results for condom use promotion in AIDS prevention materials are discussed.     

Perceptions of Social Support in Men with AIDS and ARC: Relationships with Distress and Hardiness1

Previous research has suggested that social support may act as a buffer against stress or in other ways may affect physiological adjustment, health, longevity, and sense of well-being. Perceptions of social support in persons newly diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related Complex (ARC) were examined as a part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Social support was examined in terms of emotionally-sustaining and problem-solving types of help, based on Gottlieb's content analysis of informal helping behaviors. Representative examples of each of the four major categories of help were assessed in terms of their perceived desirability, availability, frequency of use, and usefulness if used. These social support data were then examined in relation to other behavioral, cognitive, affective, and medical indices. For persons with AIDS only, increased physical distress was associated with perceiving less availability of support. For both persons with AIDS and ARC, the more available social support was perceived to be, the less hopelessness and depression were reported. While all types of help were rated as desirable by both persons with AIDS and ARC, emotionally-sustaining types of help were rated as more desirable, more available, more frequently used, and more useful when used than were problem-solving types of help. Social support measures were most consistently and strongly correlated with the Commitment subscale of Kobasa's Hardiness Scale.     

College Students' Judgments and Perceptions of Persons with AIDS From Different Risk Groups

In this analog study, 104 female and 75 male undergraduate students in the United States read 1 of 8 vignettes that described a person who had just received positive HIV antigen results. The vignettes were identical except for the sex of the person described and his or her risk-group membership (gay, heterosexual, injection-drug user, or hemophiliac). After reading the vignette, the participants completed questionnaires assessing (a) responsibility, blame, and personality characteristics of the person described in the vignette; and (b) their own homophobia and knowledge about AIDS. Results revealed that homophobia was a significant covariate that affected participants' perceptions of the person in the vignette. with homophobia as a covariate, the hemophiliac was judged the least harshly, followed by the heterosexual person, the gay person, and the injection-drug user. No gender differences were revealed. The injection-drug user was evaluated the most negatively on the personality characteristics; the other 3 groups were rated similarly. Analyses without homophobia as a covariate revealed significant gender differences, suggesting that prior research findings of gender differences on perceptions of persons with AIDS may be attributable more to differential levels of homophobia than to gender of the rater.