Abstract
Field studies on HIV risk suggest that people may rely on impressions they have about the safety of their partner at the dispense of more objective risk protection strategies. In this study, ERP recordings were used to investigate the brain mechanisms that give rise to such impressions. First, in an implicit condition, participants viewed a series of photographs of unacquainted persons while performing a task that did not mention HIV risk. Second, in an explicit condition, participants estimated the HIV risk for each presented person. Dense sensor EEG was recorded during the implicit and explicit conditions. In the analysis, explicit risk ratings were used to categorize ERP data from the implicit and explicit conditions into low and high HIV risk categories. The results reveal implicit ERP differences on the basis of subsequent ratings of HIV risk. Specifically, the processing of risky individuals was associated with an early occipital negativity (240–300 ms) and a subsequent central positivity between 430 and 530 ms compared to safe. A similar ERP modulation emerged in the explicit condition for the central positivity component between 430 and 530 ms. A subsequent late positive potential component between 550 and 800 ms was specifically enhanced for risky persons in the explicit rating condition while not modulated in the implicit condition. Furthermore, ratings of HIV risk correlated substantially with ratings of trustworthiness and responsibility. Taken together, these observations provide evidence for theories of intuitive risk perception, which, in the case of HIV risk, seem to operate via appearance-based stereotypic inferences.
Highlights
Studies on peoples’ perception of HIV risk have revealed a peculiar phenomenon: knowledge about HIV is high among sexually active individuals in Europe and the US, condoms are used far less often than necessary (Gardner et al, 1999; Civic, 2000)
Behavioral Results To verify that participants attended to the stimuli in the implicit condition, we examined the accuracy-level of the person-recognition task
Risk ratings showed substantial variance (s-2 = 3.3) and participants used the full range of the risk scale. These analyses demonstrate that our naturalistic stimuli produced broad variations in perceived HIV risk and provided an adequate basis for contrasting ERPs toward safe and risky persons in the implicit and explicit condition
Summary
Studies on peoples’ perception of HIV risk have revealed a peculiar phenomenon: knowledge about HIV is high among sexually active individuals in Europe and the US, condoms are used far less often than necessary (Gardner et al, 1999; Civic, 2000). Keller (1993) reported that as much as 85% of a college sample stated that they did not use condoms consistently Such findings have motivated health psychologists to investigate how people estimate their personal HIV risk. Field studies have found that people generally consider their partners to be safe (Maticka-Tyndale, 1991; Gold et al, 1992; Swann et al, 1995; Thompson et al, 1999) This has led to the concern that people may be deceived by a partner’s safe appearance, which could nurture an illusory feeling of control and thereby undermine consistent condom use (Williams et al, 1992). The situation is reminiscent of the sometimes surprising effects that the a person’s appearance exerts upon real-world decisions, such as voting, employment, or sentencing (Zebrowitz and McDonald, 1991; Hamermesh and Biddle, 1994; Todorov et al, 2005)
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