Learning about AIDS and HIV Transmission in College-Age Students

Abstract

Byrne's (1977) model of emotional reactions to sexual stimuli and Herek's (1988) conceptualization of attitudes toward gay men and lesbians provided the framework for studying the effects of such attitudes on adolescent learning about acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. A pretest-posttest control-group design was used to test several hypotheses concerning the effectiveness of an educational presentation and the influence of extreme attitudes toward gay men and lesbians on learning and retention of information. Findings indicated that the educational presentation produced significant increases in knowledge about AIDS and HIV transmission. Further analyses indicated there was very little forgetting of this information. Consistent with our hypotheses, students with extreme positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbians learned more about AIDS than those with extreme negative attitudes. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.