Comparison of personality of HIV positive people with normal people: A psychological study

Abstract

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a member of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. A glimpse at the increasing incidences of HIV positive cases the world over, makes it necessary for behavioral scientists to probe into the psyche of individuals, to see what prompts them to become prey to HIV. The present study was an effort to identify some personality correlates of HIV positive individuals. In this study, we used of 100 people. 50 of them were suffered from HIV and 50 of them were healthy. So we aimed to compare their some properties related to their personality such as extraversion, neuroticism, anger and self-esteem. At the end, data were analysed by SPSS software. The main findings of the research indicated that on the traits of Extraversion and Neuroticism, HIV positive individuals scored higher than HIV free subjects. Also, the HIV positive subjects showed low Self Esteem and high anger. [Maryam Rauof, Bahram Azarifar, Arezo Azarm, Roghaieh Keykha, Maryam Pourabbas. Comparison of personality of HIV positive people with normal people: A psychological study. Life Sci J 2012; 9(4):5009-5012] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 750