A Tailored Approach to Marijuana Prevention: The Role of Normative Perceptions and Message Framing

Peers play an important role in marijuana use among teens. A social norms approach to prevention provides a framework for understanding how perceptions of members of one’s social group can affect an individual’s own marijuana use. Youth who evaluate health advertisements (ads) negatively are less likely to listen to the anti-drug message and are more resistant to future persuasive attempts, putting them at heightened risk of using drugs in the future. Thus, the aim of the current study was persuade resistant adolescents that typically dislike anti-marijuana ads. In doing so, an attitudinal feedback approach was used in conjunction with gain and loss framed anti-marijuana ads tailored to student normative perceptions. A computer-based experimental survey was administered to middle school students in Southern California. Participants were asked about their normative perceptions of marijuana use—students who answered that 50% or more of the kids at his or her school used marijuana were classified into a normative group, whereas those who answered 49% or fewer were categorized into a non-normative group. Then, students were randomly assigned to view and evaluate one of two ads from a national campaign. Following this, participants were randomly assigned to receive a form of attitudinal feedback or a control. The goal of the feedback was to reinforce positive ad evaluations among teens that liked the initial ad and challenge negative ad evaluations among those that disliked the ad. Next, participants watched an anti-marijuana message, tailored to their normative perceptions, and completed a posttest assessing marijuana intentions. The sample included 1,304 students that had reported not using marijuana within the last year. Results showed no differences for low risk respondents that viewed marijuana use as non-normal among their peers. However, for the at-risk students that perceived marijuana use as a normal phenomenon, findings indicated that the gain frame message, in combination with the attitudinal feedback, was most effective for mitigating marijuana intentions. Findings imply that different attitudes toward anti-drug messages can be reinforced or challenged successfully by providing feedback on one’s initial attitudes—students that received feedback on their original attitudes were more open to future persuasive attempts. In addition, findings reveal that the gain-framed messages, tailored to specific norm perceptions in the receiver, are useful for attenuating use intentions. Thus, future prevention campaigns might consider combining feedback with a tailored gain frame message approach to decrease future behavioral intentions to engage in marijuana use.