Political conservatism and social distancing from people living with hiv among medical students: mediating roles of negative stereotypes and negative intergroup emotions

Abstract

Background: Within contemporary frameworks, stigma is defined as the co-occurrence of its separate components, such as labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination. Social distancing may be viewed as an important component related to HIV-related prejudice and discrimination and may negatively affect mental and physical health of people living with HIV (PLWH). It is important to understand how these components lead to each other. Therefore, we aimed to examine the role of political orientation in explaining in dividual differences in negative stereotypes, and how negative stereotypes in turn are associated with social distancing from PLWH. Method: First, we asked a sample of undergraduate students (N = 111) to open endedly list perceived characteristics of PLWH. Using these responses, we created a list of 90 distinct adjective phrases that people consider characteristic of PLWH. Then, we asked a new sample of 199 students (MAge = 20.77, SDAge = 4.71, Nmales = 66, Nfemales = 125) to rate these phrases in terms of how prototypic they consider them in describing PLWH. Furthermore, we used ratings of person ality/trait words obtained by Anderson (1968) to determine how positively each of these prototypic phrases are generally perceived. We then created a variable describing the degree to which each participant views negative adjectives as proto typic for PLWH (NP; the mean of prototypicality ratings for the 10 most negative phrases). We also used a validated scale for social distancing and used a single item measure to assess political orientation. All statistical analyses were adjusted for income level, race, and gender. We used bootstrapping to calculate indirect effects to test mediation hypotheses. Results: Multiple linear regression analyses suggested that political conservatism was positively related to NP (β = -.33, p < .001), and NP in turn was associated with higher social distancing from PLWH (β = .33, p < .001). NP significantly mediated the relationship between political conservatism and social distancing from PLWH (indirect effect B = -.10, 95% CI [-.18, -.05]). Conclusions: Political conservatism may be an important factor in endorsing negative stereotypes about PLWH, which in turn may lead to social distancing from PLWH.