The Effects Of Moral Elevation,Motivation To Be Non-prejudiced And Empathy On The Public Stigma Of AIDS

AIDS-related public stigma refers to the stereotype and hostile behavioral tendency towards patients with AIDS by the majority of a society.The stigma of AIDS lead to inter-group social exclusions,sabotage of human rights and disease-related social intervention.The current study explored the status quo and the factors that influence the AIDS-related public stigma using a college student sample.Using laboratory experiments and questionnaires,Study 1 examined the implicit and explicit AIDS-related public stigma of college students and the relationship between them.Study 2 primed subjects' moral elevation with video clips and examined the effect of moral elevation on the AIDS-related public stigma.In addition,individuals' non-prejudiced motivation and empathy were assessed with questionnaires to test the mediating effect of non-prejudiced motivation in the relationship between moral elevation public stigma of AIDS,and the additional moderating effect of empathy in the above relationship.Results indicated that:1.There were both implicit and explicit public stigma of AIDS among college students and they were independent from each other.2.There was no significant difference between "justice" oriented moral elevation and "care" orientation in reducing the public stigma of AIDS.3.The gender and moral elevation types had a significant interaction on the AIDS-related public stigma.4.Compared to the explicit public stigma,the implicit public stigma of AIDS was more susceptible to moral elevation.5.Non-prejudiced motivation mediated the link between moral elevation and public stigma of AIDS.6.Empathy moderated the mediating effect of non-prejudiced motivation in the relationship between moral elevation and the implicit public stigma of AIDS.The moderation effect was not significant for the explicit AIDS-related public stigma.