Survey of Washington youth on media use, perceptions, and intentions to use cannabis.
Dr. Hust and Dr. Willoughby conducted a survey of Washington state teenagers to examine the associations between exposure to pro-cannabis and anti-cannabis content on social media, exposure to cannabis advertising and cannabis retailers, and attitudes and intentions toward cannabis use. In that research, they found that exposure to pro-cannabis messaging on social media was associated with increased intentions to use cannabis, and 31% of youth posted content on their social media accounts about cannabis. Exposure to anti-cannabis messaging was indirectly associated with decreased intentions to use. Perceived proximity to retailers and perceived exposure to cannabis advertising were associated with teens’ intentions to use cannabis. Additionally, proximity to retailers significantly interacted with exposure to cannabis advertisements, with adolescents living far from a retailer who perceived they saw a large amount of cannabis advertising being more likely to report intentions to use cannabis than those teens who perceived they saw fewer cannabis advertisements. Relevant publications of this work are presented in Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, Journal of Health Communication, and Health Communication.
Survey of Washington state college students on media use, perceptions, intentions, and cannabis use.
Dr. Willoughby, Dr. Hust, and the research team conducted a survey with a state-wide sample of college students to examine associations between exposure to pro-cannabis and anti-cannabis content on social media, attitudes, intentions, and use. Additionally, they examined the perceptions of specific social media content to see if exposure to content about relationships and sexual appeals were associated with sex-related cannabis expectancies (i.e., the belief that cannabis can facilitate sexual behavior). They noted that intentions and use were strongly correlated and found that perceptions of the content to which participants were exposed were associated with both their intentions to use cannabis and their actual cannabis use. Relevant publications of this work are presented in the Journal of Sex Research, including an additional Journal of Sex Research article reporting a measure of sex-related cannabis expectancies and the previously mentioned article in Health Communication that also included college student data.
Focus groups of cannabis appeals, a receiver-oriented message analysis, and an experiment to assess the impact of various appeals on intentions to use cannabis among college students.
Dr. Hust, Dr. Willoughby, and the research team conducted focus groups with young adults to examine their perceptions of the appeals in brand-generated cannabis social media posts, finding that young people noted appeals related to romance, sexual objectification and risk, and relaxation. Following the focus groups, they conducted a receiver-oriented message analysis in which young adults assessed the content presented in a variety of brand-generated posts, noting differences between the perceptions of cannabis users and non-users. Following the receiver-oriented message analysis (ROMA), Dr. Willoughby and Dr. Hust conducted an experiment in which they examined the effects of viewing cannabis brand-generated social media posts that contained romantic appeals, sexual appeals, or non-romantic and non-sexual appeals, finding that such posts impacted intentions to use and sex-related cannabis expectancies. The resulting work from this research has been presented at the International Communication Association 2022 conference, with publications in progress and a manuscript in Drug and Alcohol Review that describes the impact of exposure to and perceptions of brand generated cannabis social media posts that include sexually objectifying content on sex-related cannabis expectancies.
Message development and online experiment to examine messages designed to increase scientific knowledge and media literacy related to cannabis use and pregnancy.
In a collaboration with faculty in the College of Nursing, the research team developed a series of messages based on qualitative interviews and formative research. Messages were designed to look like Instagram stories and increase scientific knowledge about the impact of using cannabis while pregnant and to encourage media literacy when reading information about cannabis use during pregnancy. We examined the potential effects of these messages in an online experiment with women ages 18-40 in the United States, finding that the messages did impact media literacy and science literacy related to cannabis use during pregnancy. Additionally, increased science literacy was associated with decreased intentions to use cannabis when pregnant. Results are forthcoming in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, and formative research for the project has been published in Sage Research Methods Cases: Doing Online Studies.