ERIC Number: EJ1467185
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Feb
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1090-1981
EISSN: EISSN-1552-6127
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Cannabis Users' and Non-Users' Differential Responses to Two Anti-Cannabis Campaigns
Elise M. Stevens1; Amy Cohn2; Brian Ruedinger3; Narae Kim4; Jinhee Seo3; Fuwei Sun5; Seunghyun Kim6; Glenn Leshner3
Health Education & Behavior, v52 n1 p49-60 2025
Even though multiple states have approved legal recreational use of cannabis, the expansion of recreational cannabis legalization has led to public health concerns in the United States. Young adults (18-25 years old) have the highest percentage of cannabis use disorder compared to all other age groups. The purpose of this study is to compare cognitive and emotional responses of young adults who use cannabis and non-users to two anti-cannabis media campaigns that employed different message strategies. In total, 50 people (25 people who use cannabis and 25 non-users) participated in the study--a 2 (cannabis use status: people who currently use cannabis/non-users) × 2 (Public Service Advertising [PSA] campaign: Don't be a Lab Rat-Informational/Stoner Sloth-Narrative) × 3 (message replication) experiment. Participants viewed six messages based on the combinations of each of the three message replications within two campaigns. Participants' facial emotional responses were recorded during message exposure. Self-report questions were asked after viewing each message. Self-report indices showed no differences between the two campaigns for participants who use cannabis and non-users. However, after controlling for individual differences, participants who use cannabis displayed more negative emotional responses to the Don't be a Lab Rat messages than to the Stoner Sloth messages. Conversely, cannabis users experienced more positive emotional responses to the Stoner Sloth messages than to the Don't be a Lab Rat messages. The study provides insights for message design in public health campaigns addressing cannabis use, suggesting that psychophysiological measures can be helpful in providing insights into responses not detected by traditional self-report measures.
Descriptors: Marijuana, Drug Use, Information Dissemination, Public Health, Young Adults, Emotional Response, Attitudes, Health Promotion, Risk
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: P30CA2255520
Author Affiliations: 1University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA; 2The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA; 3The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA; 4University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA; 5National Defense University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan; 6University of Arkansas–Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA