Perceptions of drug addiction: is addiction more acceptable under certain circumstances?
Abstract
This study was interested in examining people's attitudes towards drug addiction by manipulating the independent variables in the surveys given. One prompt and two vignettes were given in each survey followed by 20 questions after each vignette. Half of the participants were prompted that addiction was a disease and the other half that addiction was a choice. The targets in the vignettes were either rich or poor, and the sex of the participants was taken into account to see gender differences. It was expected that the prompt disease would have more positive attitudes than a choice, that the poor would be rated higher than the right target, and that females would be more understanding than males. The results indicate that wealth impacted the attitude toward addiction.