A new study examined marijuana-related perceptions including: descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and internalization of college marijuana use culture as potential mediators of the associations between personality traits including: impulsivity, sensation seeking, hopelessness, and anxiety sensitivity and marijuana-related outcomes including: marijuana use, negative marijuana-related consequences. Participants (N = 2129) included college students from 11 different universities who reported using marijuana in the past 30 days. Participants completed an online survey, from which the following information was obtained. Marijuana consequences in the past month were assessed using the Marijuana Consequences Questionnaire (MACQ). Marijuana use frequency as well as marijuana descriptive norms were determined through modifying and using the Daily Drinking Questionnaire (DDQ). Marijuana injunctive norms were operationalized by averaging items that asked about perceived approval of one’s best friends for certain behaviors such as using marijuana daily. The internalization of college marijuana use was assessed using the Perceived Impact of Marijuana to the College Experience (PIMCES) measure. Lastly, personality traits were assessed using the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale (SURPS) measure. The authors conducted a path analysis using Mplus to examine the above variables. Results showed that impulsivity and sensation seeking had unique positive direct effects on the internalization of college marijuana use culture (p < .05). Sensation seeking had a unique positive direct effect on injunctive norms, whereas hopelessness had a unique negative direct effect on injunctive norms (p < .05). Furthermore, hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity and each of the marijuana perception variables had unique positive direct effects on marijuana use frequency (p < .05). While hopelessness, impulsivity and internalization of college marijuana use culture had unique positive direct effects on marijuana consequences, descriptive norms and injunctive norms had unique negative direct effects on marijuana consequences (p < .05). As for indirect effects, sensation seeking had a weak positive total effect on marijuana use frequency, which was explained by positive indirect effects through injunctive norms (accounted for 47.95% of the total effect) and internalization of college marijuana use culture (24.66% of the total effect). Hopelessness (4.55%), sensation seeking (20.31%), and impulsivity (16.60%) had positive indirect effects on marijuana consequences via internalization of college marijuana use culture. Hopelessness (4.55%) and impulsivity (1.60%) also had positive indirect effects on marijuana consequences via injunctive norms, whereas sensation seeking had a negative indirect effect via injunctive norms. In addition, hopelessness (20.71%) had a positive indirect effect on marijuana consequences via marijuana use frequency.
Take away: This study found that the internalization of college marijuana use culture mediated the effects of both impulsivity and sensation seeking on marijuana-related outcomes.