Buddhists Care: Examining the Impact of Religious Elements on Reducing Discriminatory Attitudes toward People Living with HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Faith-based programs have been long regarded as influential social approaches to form positive attitudes to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) within the last few decades. However, recent scholars argue that religions serve a double role in supporting HIV-infected people. Moreover, relevant evidence is mainly collected from studies among participants of the Western religious traditions, such as Christianity. This study applies the theory of the attitude formation model to examine Buddhist factors impacting discriminatory attitudes towards HIV/AIDS and the causal path to positive behavior intention. To investigate its underlying mechanism, Buddhist elements, as an important antecedent, were introduced in the advertisement against HIV/AIDS-related discrimination to influence people’s attitudinal reaction. Results show that Buddhist advertising could significantly increase perceived religiosity and compassion. Then, both perceived religiosity and compassion jointly increase anti-prejudical attitudes towards HIV-infected people and have a positive impact on interaction intention at the end.

The Sacred Power of Beauty: Examining the Perceptual Effect of Buddhist Symbols on Happiness and Life Satisfaction in China

“…It suggests that the aesthetics of Buddhist symbols Mudra, such as a hand holding a lotus flower, plays a significant role in improving subjective well-being. This is consistent with the prior literature that a religious symbol could enhance people's psychological enjoyment, pleasure [22][23][24][25][26][27]38,72], and experience [54].…”

“…Recently, the aesthetic power of the Buddhist gesture symbol has been emphasized in the related literature [22][23][24][25][26][27]72]. Scholars, like Deng [38], have examined how the Buddhist gesture symbol has been utilized and adapted to enhance people's aesthetic satisfaction and life quality through psychological enjoyment and pleasure elicited by Buddhist spirituality.…”

“…Durkheim [13] underlines the effects of religious symbols-through transferring the collective energy of religiosity onto a visible object-on uniting and enlightening people who have shared beliefs. Given this, considering the aesthetic effects of Buddhist gesture symbols on enjoyment and pleasure elicited by Buddhist spirituality [22][23][24][25][26][27]72], we hypothesize that Buddhist gesture symbols facilitate people's religiosity. In addition, the mediator of religiosity has been previously studied to impact subjective well-being.…”

“…The aesthetic effect of Buddhist artworks has worked as a prevalent way to teach people Buddhist doctrines in history and construct its profound meaning system through figurative quality [19,20]. Buddhist symbols in artworks, particularly the symbol of the Buddha gesture, can embody and symbolize the intangible meanings and powers rooted in Buddhist spirituality with beautiful decoration [21][22][23]. Empirical research [24] suggests that religious symbols impact positive health behaviors; however, the aesthetic effect is underestimated with limited evidence, especially in the case of Buddhist symbols.…”

“…As a sensible medium, Buddhist symbols tend to encourage people's conceptual processing of their religiosity through enriched comprehension. Though the aesthetic power of Buddhist gesture symbols has been previously discussed [22][23][24][25][26][27], limited empirical evidence has been provided to underpin the theoretical relationship between the aesthetics of Buddhist symbols and relevant psychological constructs and processes.…”