Scales for Measuring Fear of AIDS and Homophobia
The phobia of AIDS in recent years is a psychological phenomenon that is not clearly understood. In the 1980's the concept of AIDS was new and the fear of AIDS blended with other fears in order to create a huge social stigma surrounding the gay community. Two measures of fear scaling were created by Bouton and his colleagues in order to determine the reliability of the test results and compare them to each other. They found that the fear rates were extremely high, and the correlation value between homophobia and AIDS fear was found to be .55. By comparing the two fear scales, researchers were able to conclude that in certain factors, they were directed correlated. A high correlation rate means that as the scale of homophobia increases, so does the scale of AIDS fear. Bouton also concluded that the predisposing fear of homosexuals leads to an increased fear of AIDS by relation and that this fear was strongest and most prevalent among the male participants. In another study conducted by Jessica Harrell and Leslie Wright, two tests were conducted on college students to determine the rates of fear of transmission of AIDS. Harrell and Wright utilized Boutons previously conducted experiments and scales in order to test the prevalence of AIDS phobia years later. The researchers looked at different factors (including fear of infection and fear of others/avoidance) and found that a high correlation value in one factor does not necessarily predict a high value in another. However, an r-value of approximately .70 represents an increasingly high AIDS Phobia rate among these college students in the early 90's. Both of these conducted studies show an increasing fear of AIDS in the United States and the misplaced stigma we create when viewing those who contract HIV/AIDS.
Richard A. Bouton , Peggy E. Gallaher , Paul Arthur Garlinghouse , Terri Leal , Leslie D. Rosenstein & Robert K. Young (1987) Scales for Measuring Fear of AIDS and Homophobia, Journal of Personality Assessment, 51:4, 606-614, DOI: 10.1207/ s15327752jpa5104_13
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5104_13