A review of research on AIDS preventive behavior indicates that minority and nonminority heterosexual adolescents and adults, gay men, injection drug users, and commercial sex workers are all less likely to practice safer sex with close relationship partners, compared with partners they perceive to be “casual” sexual partners. Because many individuals in close relationships have engaged in HIV risk behavior over extended periods of time and are unaware of their actual HIV status, practicing unprotected sexual intercourse with a committed relationship partner who is not tested for HIV appears to be a major and unrecognized source of HIV risk. This article reviews the evidence for higher levels of HIV risk behavior in close relationships and then presents relevant conceptual and empirical work to explore the psychological processes that may underlie risky sexual behavior in close relationships, using as a framework the information–motivation–behavioral skills model of preventive behavior.

This study assessed the effects of 3 theoretically grounded, school-based HIV prevention interventions on inner-city minority high school students' levels of HIV prevention information, motivation, behavioral skills, and behavior. It involved a quasi-experimental controlled trial comparing classroom-based, peer-based, and combined classroom-and peer-based HIV prevention interventions with a standard-ofcare control condition in 4 urban high schools (N ϭ 1,532, primarily 9th-grade students). At 12 months postintervention, the classroom-based intervention resulted in sustained changes in HIV prevention behavior. This article discusses why both of the interventions involving peers were less effective than the classroom-based intervention at the 12-month follow-up and, more generally, suggests a set of possible limiting conditions for the efficacy of peer-based interventions.

This research used the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model of AIDS risk behavior change (J. D. Fisher & Fisher, 1992a) to reduce AIDS risk behavior in a college student population. College students received an IMB model-based intervention that addressed AIDS risk reduction information, motivation, and behavioral skills deficits that had been empirically identified in this population, or were assigned to a no-treatment control condition. At a 1-month follow-up, results confirmed that the intervention resulted in increases in AIDS risk reduction information, motivation, and behavioral skills, as well as significant increases in condom accessibility, safer sex negotiations, and condom use during sexual intercourse. At a long-term follow-up, the intervention again resulted in significant increases in AIDS preventive behaviors.

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The present research utilizes the information‐motivation‐behavioral skills (IMB) model (Fisher & Fisher, 1992, 2000) to predict breast self‐examination (BSE) and related behaviors in women. Results from a cross‐sectional survey study of 166 women found deficiencies in BSE‐related information, motivation, and behavioral skills, as well as insufficient rates of BSE‐related behaviors. Structural equation modeling indicated that IMB model variables account for significant variance in BSE and BSE‐related behaviors, and that the predicted relationships between the constructs of the 1MB model were supported. The present research extends the utility of the IMB model beyond preventive behaviors such as HIV prevention into the domain of detection behaviors such as BSE.