Individuals living with HIV may have a heightened sensitivity to the behaviors of others that may signal bias or discrimination. Identifying and avoiding these potentially problematic behaviors may be especially important for service providers, such as health care personnel, who regularly interact with HIV-positive clientele. This study examines the experiences of 50 male American military veterans living with HIV and their perceptions of HIV stigma within health care contexts. Participants described a variety of behaviors performed by health care personnel that they perceived to be indicative of HIV stigma, ranging from ambiguous nonverbal cues (e.g., minimal eye contact) to blatant discrimination (e.g., physical abuse of HIV-positive patients). These findings extend previous research on HIV stigma in health care settings by (1) focusing on health care personnel's actual behaviors rather than their attitudes and beliefs about HIV-positive patients, (2) including patients' perceptions regarding the behaviors of both clinical and nonclinical health care personnel, and (3) identifying behaviors patients perceive as stigmatizing that are unique to health care contexts. Combined, these findings provide health care personnel a tangible list of behaviors that should either be avoided or further explained to HIV-positive patients, as they may be interpreted as stigmatizing.

Social norms surrounding sexuality, pregnancy, and childbearing may help guide women's healthrelated behaviors. In this study, we explore low-income women's perceptions of fertility-related norms by allowing women to describe their experiences with normative expectations. Semistructured interviews (N = 30) suggested that women in low-income subject positions articulate descriptive norms that generally correspond with mainstream descriptive norms, identify two major sources of injunctive norms concerning fertility and sexuality-authoritative and peer-oriented, and often align their behaviors according to sub-group expectations communicated in the form of peeroriented injunctive norms. We discuss these results in light of the extant literature on social norms. (Chandra, Martinez, Mosher, Abma, & Jones, 2005). The same survey also revealed that 12 percent of women reported a physical difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a baby to term. These statistics draw attention to the complex issues surrounding women's control (or lack of control) over their fertility. Women cope with situations in which pregnancy is unintended or undesired as well as situations in which pregnancy is desired but difficult to achieve. As women navigate the terrains of fertility-related issues, they likely compare their behaviors to social norms about desired and ideal behaviors. This is anYet, not all women experience and are judged by the same sets of fertility-related norms.Rapp (2001) discussed norms surrounding fertility and sexuality in terms of "stratified reproduction," defined as "the hierarchical organization of reproductive health, fecundity, birth experiences, and child rearing that supports and rewards the maternity of some women, while despising or outlawing the mother-work of others" (p. 469). From this perspective, many marginalized groups, such as low-income women, may struggle to find a voice in the hierarchy of reproductive health, and they might also find that following dominant norms about fertility can be enormously problematic, especially when norms conflict, are unstable, or are unrealistic.Our goal in this paper is to contribute to existing literature on social norms and the relationship among communication, norms, and behavior by asking members of an understudied population (e.g., low-income women) to discuss a normatively-oriented topic (e.g., fertility and Fertility Norms 4 sexuality) in their own words. More specifically, we asked low-income women what they considered to be normative practices and ideal behaviors. This project works not only to increase knowledge of how norms relate to low-income women's behaviors, it also examines the sources of messages about social norms through the lens of existing normative theory.In the following sections, we provide an overview of research on norms surrounding fertility and sexuality in the United States and outline a theoretical framework useful for understanding fertility-related norms. We then explain the methods we used to explore women's understandings of the...

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In this article we explore elements of the theory of normative social behavior (TNSB) through interviews with low-income women ( N = 30) in a Midwestern U.S. state about their experiences with and perceptions of fertility-related norms. Using grounded theory and matrix analysis as analytical lenses, we found that individuals sometimes learn of injunctive norms and social sanctions separately, might be more likely to comply with a norm if they learn about norms and sanctions in concert, and might be more likely to engage in norm compliance if they learn about two different types of sanctions, short- and long-term, along with the injunctive norm. We also found that a number of important barriers can limit one’s ability to choose to comply with a norm. In conclusion, we discuss implications for continued theorizing of the TNSB in light of the experiences of traditionally marginalized populations.

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