Attitudes of student nurses are of concern in recruiting graduates into psychiatric nursing and graduate programs. This study examined the attitudes of 146 junior year student nurses toward four populations of patients: the chronically mentally ill, the elderly mentally ill, patients with alcoholism, and severely mentally ill children and adolescents. The three subject groups were formed based on their expressed interest or lack of interest in working in psychiatric nursing and their completion or non-completion of one of four psychiatric nursing electives: (1) expressed interest and an elective completed; (2) expressed interest and no elective taken; (3) expressed lack of interest and no elective taken. The research hypothesis was that the attitudes toward the four patient populations would be significantly more positive in the Interest-Elective group than in the Interest-No Elective and No Interest-No Elective groups. A one-way MANOVA revealed no significant between-group effects. One-way ANOVAs, conducted to generate future research questions, revealed that the attitudes of the Interest-Elective and the Interest-No Elective groups tended to be more positive than the No-Interest-No Elective group toward the chronically mentally ill as well as for Total Attitude. The Interest-Elective group also had more positive attitudes than the No Interest-No Elective group on the children/adolescent scale. No significant differences in attitudes were found between the Interest-Elective and Interest-No Elective groups. Students who completed psychiatric nursing electives had more positive attitudes than those who were not interested in psychiatric nursing and did not take electives. These results have implications for curriculum revision and recruitment to psychiatric nursing positions and graduate study.