Renting Rooms in Three Canadian Cities: Accepting and Rejecting the Aids Patient

Following methods previously developed, the social stigma associated with AIDS was investigated by placing 90 telephone calls to landlords advertising rooms for rent in each of three Canadian cities: Windsor, Toronto, and Halifax. Compared to control conditions, calls ostensibly from AIDS patients were likely to elicit negative responses as to availability of the advertised room. The results provided an initial examination of the public's attitude toward conditions such as AIDS. Results were compared with those of previous studies investigating stigmatization of the mentally ill, in which the competing themes of acceptance and rejection were also found. Results were discussed in the context of strategies for measurement of attitudes toward minority or stigmatized groups.