College Students Use Implicit Personality Theory Instead of Safer Sex1

Many college students engage in high levels of unsafe sexual behavior that puts them at risk for HIV infection. To better understand the dynamics underlying college students' unsafe behavior, focus group discussions were conducted with 308 students (146 men and 162 women). The results showed that, instead of consistently using condoms, many college students use implicit personality theories to judge the riskiness of potential sexual partners. Specifically, partners whom college students know and like are not perceived to be risky, even if what students know about these individuals is irrelevant to HIV status. The students determine the riskiness of partners they do not know well based on superficial characteristics that are also generally unrelated to HIV status. Therefore, AIDS prevention interventions for college students must expose the ineffectiveness of the students' use of implicit personality theories to determine potential partners' riskiness, and the “know your partner” safer sex guideline should be abandoned.