Problems of Measuring Character and Personality

The present study examined whether expressed acceptance of a person with AIDS reflects genuine acceptance or a desire to appear to be accepting. Theory and research on the effects of mortality salience on acceptance of stigmatized people provided the framework for investigating this question. After writing about death or another aversive topic, participants indicated their acceptance of a target with AIDS while connected to physiological equipment that they believed could detect lies (bogus pipeline) or was simply measuring physiological responses to participation in the study. As predicted, participants in the mortality salience/bogus pipeline condition indicated significantly less acceptance of the target with AIDS than participants in the other three conditions, suggesting that acceptance of a person with AIDS is at least partially a result of wanting to appear to be accepting, without necessarily genuinely accepting someone with AIDS.