Understanding and overcoming adolescents resistance to anti-marijuana ads

描述（由申请人提供）：越来越多的青少年认可和使用大麻，并报告大麻相对容易获得。由于大麻的使用与许多负面后果有关，多年来已经实施了许多预防活动，但大多数都被证明是无效的。我们认为，许多宣传活动的失败是由于人们普遍认为，同样的信息将成功地说服不同的青少年受众。该应用程序旨在通过开发和测试一种基于理论的定制互动媒体干预（TIMI）来防止大麻的使用，以避免这一常见缺点。这种干预结合了两种理论，这两种理论分别被证明对态度改变有强大的影响。综合起来，他们提供了必要的手段来阻止青少年大麻使用的加速趋势，这在今天的社会统计数据中是显而易见的。这种方法的开始要么是强化反大麻的信念，要么是削弱支持大麻的信念。然后，根据每个参与者对同龄人使用大麻的规范性的看法，再发送第二条信息。对于支持大麻的年轻人来说，这一信息攻击了第一次交流所削弱的态度。我们的方法是基于阻力评估模型（RAM）和偏差调节模型（DRM），前者指定了减少对说服的阻力的策略，后者指导了信息的构建方式，以解释青少年对同伴规范的感知差异。实验1分别测试了这些理论在大麻预防背景下的效用。实验2测试了将这些理论结合起来开发TIMI的效果，随后进行了在一学年的课程中反复管理TIMI的效果测试。结果包括对大麻的态度、态度确定性、使用意图和实际使用情况。这种方法通过减少态度的确定性来克服阻力，并通过考虑和利用个人感知的同伴规范来最大限度地产生有说服力的信息，青少年非常适应这些规范。它概述了一种可行且具有成本效益的方法，通过削弱并直接针对支持毒品的态度，以一种广泛适用于所有在校青少年的方式来防止青少年大规模使用大麻，在过去的四年中，大麻的使用显著增加。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Increasing numbers of adolescents approve of and use marijuana, and report that marijuana is relatively easy to obtain. Because marijuana use is associated with a host of negative consequences, many prevention campaigns have been implemented over the years, but most have been proven ineffective. We believe the failure of many campaigns is due to the common practice of assuming that the same message will successfully persuade a diverse audience of adolescents. This application seeks to prevent marijuana use by developing and testing a theory-based Tailored Interactive Media Intervention (TIMI) that avoids this common shortcoming. This intervention combines two theories that individually have been shown to have powerful effects on attitude change. In combination, they provide the means necessary to stem the accelerated tide of adolescent marijuana use that is evident in today's social statistics. The approach begins by either reinforcing anti-marijuana beliefs or weakening pro-marijuana beliefs. A second message, tailored to account for each participant's view of the normative nature of peer marijuana use, is then delivered. For pro-marijuana youth, this message attacks an attitude weakened by the first communication. Our approach is based on the resistance appraisals model (RAM), which specifies strategies to reduce resistance to persuasion, and the deviance regulation model (DRM), which guides the ways messages should be framed to account for differences in adolescents' perceptions of peer norms. Experiment 1 tests the utility of these theories separately in a marijuana prevention context. Experiment 2 tests the effects of combining the theories in developing a TIMI, and follows with a test of the effect of administering the TIMI repeatedly over the course of a school year. Outcomes include attitude toward marijuana, attitude certainty, intention to use marijuana, and actual usage. This approach overcomes resistance by reducing attitude certainty, and it creates maximally persuasive messages by accounting for and capitalizing on individually perceived peer norms, to which adolescents are exquisitely attuned. It outlines a feasible and cost- effective way of preventing adolescent marijuana use on a large scale by weakening and then directly targeting pro-drug attitudes in a manner that is widely applicable for all school-attending adolescents, a group in which marijuana use has risen significantly and dramatically over the past 4 years.