Who volunteers for companionship with mental patients? A study of attitude-belief-intention relationships.

A major purpose of this study was to show the degree of relationship between humanitarian attitudes and beliefs about mental patients, on one hand, and volunteering for a companionship program for mental hospital patients. Yet the social psychology literature indicates that predictive validity of attitude measures is perhaps the most poorly verified area of attitude research. It was thought that general altruistic attitude and specific beliefs about mental patients, in linear combination, would have a reasonably close link to subjects' intentions to participate in companionship. In effect, beliefs about patients would function like a cognate screen, with respect to humanitarian attitude. Persons who hold negative beliefs, e.g., that patients are dirty, dangerous and unpredictable, unlike normal people, etc, will tend to shy away from a program intended to bring them into contact with such individuals, despite their altruism.