Abstract

TORRES, Ana Raquel Rosas  and  FARIA, Margareth Regina Gomes Veríssimo de. Belief in a just word and prejudice: the case of homosexuals with HIV/AIDS. Interam. j. psychol. [online]. 2008, vol.42, n.3, pp.570-579. ISSN 0034-9690.

The objective of this work was to investigate the prejudice against homosexuals with HIV/AIDS, analyzing the Belief in a Just World (BJW) as a moderator in this process. Participants were 171 psychology students who answered a questionnaire with the BJW scale followed by a fictitious interview with a man saying that he was ill. His sexual orientation (homosexual X heterosexual) and his illness (HIV/AIDS X lung cancer) were manipulated. The results showed that men with HIV/SIDA were seen as more accountable for their illness. The results also showed the BJW moderation effect, indicating that, in the high BJW condition, homosexuals with HIV/SIDA were regarded as the most accountable for their illness. However, in the low BJW condition, heterosexuals with HIV/AIDS were the most accountable. Those results were discussed from the aversive racism theory perspective of Gaertner y Dovídio (1986), emphasizing the importance of more studies about prejudice against homosexuals in the social psychologists agenda of investigations.

Keywords : Prejudice and discrimination; Homosexuality; Belief in a just world; HIV/AIDS.

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