Understanding and overcoming adolescents resistance to anti-marijuana ads

描述(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。由于大麻的使用与一系列负面后果有关，多年来实施了许多预防运动，但大多数被证明是无效的。我们认为，许多运动的失败是因为人们普遍认为，同样的信息会成功地说服不同的青少年受众。这个应用程序试图通过开发和测试一种基于理论的定制互动媒体干预(TIMI)来防止大麻使用，以避免这一共同缺点。这种干预结合了两种理论，分别证明了这两种理论对态度改变具有强大的影响。结合起来，它们提供了必要的手段，以遏制青少年使用大麻的加速趋势，这在今天的社会统计数据中是显而易见的。这一方法要么是强化反大麻信念，要么是削弱亲大麻信念。然后传递第二条信息，以考虑到每个参与者对同伴使用大麻的规范性质的看法。对于支持大麻的年轻人来说，这条信息攻击了一种因第一次沟通而被削弱的态度。我们的方法是基于阻力评估模型(RAM)和越轨调节模型(DRM)，前者规定了减少说服阻力的策略，后者指导信息的构建方式，以考虑青少年对同伴规范的不同认知。实验1分别测试了这些理论在大麻预防方面的实用性。实验2测试了将这些理论结合起来发展TIMI的效果，然后测试了在一个学年的过程中重复使用TIMI的效果。结果包括对大麻的态度、态度的确定性、使用大麻的意图和实际使用情况。这种方法通过降低态度确定性来克服阻力，并通过考虑和利用青少年精致地适应的个人感知的同伴规范来创造最具说服力的信息。它概述了一种可行和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，以广泛适用于所有在校青少年的方式，防止青少年大规模使用大麻，在过去4年中，这一群体的大麻使用量大幅上升。

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.