Reactions of Heterosexual African American Men to Women's Condom Negotiation Strategies

Abstract

This study describes responses of 172 single heterosexual African American men, ages 18 to 35, to condom negotiation attempts. Strategies used included reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, referent, and informational strategies, based on Raven's (1992) influence model. The purpose was (a) to identify strategies influencing participant acquiescence to request and (b) to identify predictors of participant compliance/refusal to comply with negotiation attempts. Participants viewed six videotape segments showing an actress, portrayed in silhouette, speaking to the viewer as a “steady partner.” After each segment, participants completed measures of request compliance, positive and negative affect, and attributions concerning the model and themselves. No significant differences were found in men's ratings across all vignettes. However, differences in response existed across subgroups of individuals, suggesting that, although the strategy used had little impact on participant response, the act of suggesting condom use produced responses that differed across participant subgroups. Subgroups differed on levels of AIDS risk knowledge, sexually transmitted disease history, and experience with sexual coercion. Also, the “least willing to use” subgroup was highest in anger–rejection and least likely to make attributions of caring for partner. Effective negotiation of condom use with a male sexual partner may not be determined as much by specific strategy used as by partner characteristics.

Support for this project was provided by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Grant R03-MH58522 and by NIMH Center Grant P30-MH52776. We thank the 172 men who told us about their lives, Carmen Ballentine, the late Lew Broyles, Jeff Buckles, Brenda Coley, Denise Crumble, Allan C. Hauth, Mark O'Neil, Ricardo Reed, Lori Runge, Cheri Treffinger, and Cassandra Wright for their input and assistance.