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Loomingness and the Fear of AIDS: Perceptions of Motion and Menace
Author(s) -
Riskind John H,
Maddux James E.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1994.tb00591.x
Subject(s) - psychology , harm , perception , looming , social psychology , cognition , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , medicine , family medicine , neuroscience
The authors examined the role of “perceived loomingness” in fear of HIV. Perceived loomingness refers to perceptions of rapid forward movement and instantaneous changes in the distance and danger of a potential threat (Riskind, 1992). One hundred and twenty undergraduates rated vignettes of two public encounters with an HIV‐positive stranger. High‐HIV fear subjects perceived greater loomingness and danger in these vignettes than did low‐HIV fear subjects. Regression analyses that tested for a mediated model confirmed that the perceptions of loomingness may spark threat cognitions (such as the probability and imminence of harm), which, in turn, lead to fear. As predicted by the harm‐looming model, loomingness also had some effects on fear that were not mediated by such standard threat cognitions.