Space-Focused Stereotypes About People Living With HIV/AIDS and the Effects on Community-Approaching Willingness

Targeting people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), this research examined the prevalence of space-focused stereotypes and their underlying mechanism on behavioral inclinations. Study 1 adopted the explicit nomination and implicit Go/No-Go association tests to explore the existence of space-focused stereotypes of people living with HIV/AIDS. The results demonstrated that space-focused stereotypes were only manifested explicitly with characteristics such as messy, dirty, and gloomy. Study 2 demonstrated a more negative evaluation and community-approaching willingness for communities that include people living with HIV/AIDS than those without HIV/AIDS. Additionally, space-focused stereotypes were found to have an indirect influence on community-approaching willingness; the influence was mediated by both emotional (threat perception) and cognitive factors (community evaluation). These results indicate the deviation of explicit and implicit space-focused stereotypes. More importantly, it revealed that space-focused stereotypes decreased community evaluation and influenced behavioral inclination. This research suggested the existence of space-focused stereotypes on another stigmatized social group. Characteristics of space (e.g., geographical segregation) might be the key to forming space-focused stereotypes.