The stigma of AIDS: Persons with AIDS and social distance

Abstract

Persons with AIDS (PWAs) are faced with the social isolation and discrimination that accompanies a deviant and stigmatized status. In this reasearch, we used the labeling or societal reaction theory in the sociology of deviance to investigate factors related to the stigmatization of a PWA who developed AIDS as the result of one of four behaviors: homosexual sex, IV drug use, heterosexual sex, or a blood transfusion. A questionnaire was used to gather data from a sample of college students. Results from a one‐way analysis of variance indicated that of the four PWA conditions respondents attached the least stigma to the PWA in the blood transfusion condition and the greater stigma to the PWA in the heterosexual condition. The greatest, but similar, amount of stigma was attached to both the homosexual and the IV drug use conditions. Multiple regression analysis also revealed several significant findings. First, we found that stigma increased as homophobia increased in all four PWA conditions. Second, stigma increased as AIDS knowledge decreased in the IV drug use and blood transfusion conditions. Third, women attached less stigma than men in all but the heterosexual condition. Fourth, in the blood transfusion condition, stigma decreased as religiosity increased.