Loyola Marymount University, Department of Psychology, Los Angeles, CA 90045, USA.
Addict Behav. 2011 Jul;36(7):717-20. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2011.02.004. Epub 2011 Feb 12.
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug among college students and has the potential for various negative outcomes. Perceptions of what constitutes typical approval/acceptability of a reference group (i.e. injunctive social norms) have been shown to have strong utility as predictors of health-risk behaviors in the college context, yet this construct remains significantly understudied for marijuana use despite its potential for use in social norms-based interventions. The current research evaluated individuals' marijuana approval level and their perceptions of others' marijuana approval level (i.e. injunctive norms) for various reference groups (typical student on campus, one's close friends, and one's parents) as a function of individual user status (abstainers, experimenters, occasional users, and regular users). A diverse sample of 3553 college students from two universities completed an online survey. Among all user status groups, individual approval yielded mean scores paralleling that of perceived close friends' approval and all groups were relatively uniform in their perception of typical students' approval. Higher levels of marijuana use tended to produce higher endorsements of individual approval, perceived close friends' approval, and perceived parental approval. Among occasional and regular users, there were no differences between one's own approval level for use and the perceptions of close friends' approval, nor did they think the typical student was more approving than themselves. Abstainers and experimenters, however, perceived typical students and close friends to have more permissive attitudes than themselves. Implications and future directions for research regarding the role of injunctive marijuana use norms in the development of social norms intervention are discussed.
大麻是大学生中最常使用的非法药物，具有各种负面影响。人们对参考群体（即约束性社会规范）所构成的典型认可/可接受性的看法已被证明在预测大学生健康风险行为方面具有很强的效用，但尽管大麻在基于社会规范的干预措施中具有潜在用途，但针对其使用的这一概念仍未得到充分研究。目前的研究评估了个体对各种参考群体（校园内的典型学生、亲密朋友和父母）的大麻认可水平及其对他人大麻认可水平（即约束性规范）的看法，这取决于个体使用者的身份（禁欲者、尝试者、偶尔使用者和常规使用者）。来自两所大学的 3553 名大学生参加了一项在线调查。在所有使用者群体中，个人认可的平均得分与亲密朋友的认可得分相似，而且所有群体对典型学生的认可都相对一致。较高水平的大麻使用倾向于产生更高的个人认可、亲密朋友认可和父母认可的支持。在偶尔使用者和常规使用者中，自己对使用的认可水平与亲密朋友的认可感知之间没有差异，他们也不认为典型学生比自己更认可。然而，禁欲者和尝试者认为典型学生和亲密朋友比自己有更宽容的态度。讨论了关于大麻使用约束性规范在社会规范干预发展中的作用的研究的意义和未来方向。
