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- 1. Using media for the prevention of drug use and substance abuse Prof. William Crano UNODC Consultant Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, USA
- 2. Can Mass Media Reduce Illicit Substance Use? 2
- 3. Characteristics of successful media campaigns • Always based on established theories of persuasion, not whim or “common sense” • Usually used subtle message appeals, not extreme threats or extremely directive language, which often had adverse effects • Often appealed to parents, or were associated with parental monitoring • Sometimes were designed to educate parents about the dangers of substance misuse • Sometimes involved larger efforts, including school & community 3
- 4. Why have our media-based efforts often failed? • The recipe for failure. Unsuccessful campaigns were: – Never based on established theories of message-based persuasion, but rather apparently reasonable ideas about what to say, and how to say it – Almost always obviously manipulative – Often used fear-based appeals, that made unrealistic threats, that were easily disproved or inconsistent with experience – Never appealed to, or involved parents, schools, or the larger community 4
- 5. What to do? A quick review of the process of persuasive change
- 6. Assume resistance by the audience • If your suggestion is contrary to the beliefs or intentions of the audience, they will resist by: – Disconfirming the logic of the message – Debasing source of the message – Distorting the message (biased misunderstanding) 6
- 7. How can a message be persuasive? • Raise question in receiver’s mind about the advisability of an action or belief, with strong communications that are difficult to counter • Provide an answer to the question • Target or tailor the persuasive message to unique susceptibilities of the group or individual to enhance message effects 7
- 8. The signature ad of the National Youth Anti-drug Media Campaign – What do you think of it? 8
- 9. The goals • Make counter-argumentation difficult, impossible, or apparently unnecessary. • Ensure message source is viewed as expert. • Tailor the persuasive message to unique susceptibilities of the group or individual to enhance message effects. Choose your target! – Do you want to reinforce resolute nonusers? – Or, persuade those who are contemplating drug use to resist? – Or, influence users to quit? 9
- 10. How to beat counter-argumentation • Use sources who have nothing to gain by audience’s agreement (expert, scientist, trusted media person, etc.) • Make counter-arguing difficult by media overload or distraction (highly media active presentation that captures attention and lowers ability to counter-argue) • Misdirection: vary the apparent target of persuasion; good chance of persistent change if message is strong.
- 11. Example of misdirection • “Parents [Students], I’d like to talk to you today about an important issue…message attacked illicit substance use – Middle-school youth significantly more persuaded by “Parents” ad. Why counter-argue a message to Mom? • Arizona anti-smoking campaign – • Second hand smoke ads directed to parents worked… on adolescents as well as parents! • Both of these studies succeeded because the audience did not recognize the need to counter-argue
- 12. The “Parents” Campaign • Parents – the anti-drug – Unlike more costly campaigns, this smaller scale national campaign had a positive impact on adolescents’ drug use • Why? – Most obviously, parents became more aware and monitored children more closely – Less obviously, children saw the ads, and did not counter- argue – why bother? The ad was directed at Mama 12
- 13. Can parents really have a major impact on their adolescent children? If so, can insights from studies of parents’ effects be transferred to mass media campaigns? 13
- 14. 14
- 15. Effects of parental monitoring • Analysis combined data of 17 studies involving 35,000 (parent and child) pairs of respondents • Studied link between parental monitoring and their adolescent children’s marijuana use • Results indicated a significant relation between monitoring and adolescent marijuana use: Greater monitoring = less use – Stronger association in girls than boys – Stronger when monitoring was defined strictly in terms of open communication between parents and children – Strong evidence against chance (7,358 studies of nil effects required to render overall result statistically non-significant). 17
- 16. Implications for policy makers (1/2) • Choose and target your audience [users, intenders, resolute nonusers] • Message must: – Raise question – Provide answer – Reinforce acceptance • Carefully work to overcome counter-arguments. • Do not over-promise or over-threaten: the scalpel is more effective than the axe 21
- 17. Implications for policy makers (2/2) • Involve experts on theories of persuasion and communication (the ‘creative people’ are not enough!) • Use formative research and evaluate, evaluate, evaluate • Involve research institutions and universities • Involve parents if possible • If it is not possible, make it possible 22
- 18. A parting note from the author of these slides • The requirements I have discussed are not difficult, but they are unforgiving. They require knowledge and motivation. I have tried to provide some knowledge and hopefully, much motivation • Creative ads are wonderful, if they follow these rules; if not, they are a waste of time, energy, and scarce resources • Thank you for your kind attention. I wish you all the best in your important work • Prof. William Crano, Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, USA. 23
Editor's Notes
- Yes, but media must be used carefully if they are to succeed. Failure can be very costly. From 1998-2006, $1,400,000,000 to run National Youth Anti-drug Media Campaign (NYAMC) Despite these expenditures, the evaluators concluded that Greater exposure to the campaign was associated with weaker anti-drug norms and increases in the perceptions that others use marijuana.
- Yes, but media must be used carefully if they are to succeed. Failure can be very costly. Common sense: Seems obvious that very strong threats would help youth resist drug use – in fact, the opposite usually is true. Subtle messages do not, for example, declare that anyone who uses drugs is mad or self-destructive, but rather suggests that problems might ensue from drug misuse. Youth often are highly resistant to anti-drug messages, but their parents are not. They may be the most productive audience for preventive media. The most successful media campaigns usually involve an integration of anti-drug activities in the schools and the larger community.
- We have 60 years of strong scientific evidence to draw upon. It is wasteful to ignore this knowledge and arrogant to believe that we can do better based on our own brilliant ideas. Fear-based messages sometimes can convince youth not to initiate drug use, but usually fail because the threats prove unrealistic or easily disconfirmed by youths’ experience. If fear-appeal induces compliance, but is later rejected, the result usually is even worse than if the appeal had never been given. If the threat is not consistent with the audience’s experience, it will fail or backfire, and also raise resistance to future prevention campaigns. There is a large cost involved for persuasive failure.
- Assume audience will resist your message; here’s how they are most likely to do it: logical disconfirmation, debase source, distorted understanding. Suppose you wish to use media to persuade an audience to adopt a specific practice or idea (e.g., avoid drug use) And, suppose further that this suggestion is contrary to the many audience members’ beliefs or intentions To succeed, you need to understand the process of resistance that you must overcome. How do people resist a persuasive message? Research shows people usually adopt one or more of the following tactics, which may involve: Logical disconfirmation of my argument Debasing the message source Distorting (biased misunderstanding) my message
- Raise question & provide answer: subtlety is crucially important. Target/tailor: You must decide whom you wish to persuade. Usually, one size does not fit everyone. Users and nonusers respond differently to the same message. ****** Given expected resistance to persuasion, we have created a model of media effectiveness based on established theories of message construction The theory insists that a persuasive message must accomplish three functions: Raise question in receiver’s mind about the advisability of an action or belief, with strong communications that are difficult to counter Provide an answer to the question Target or tailor the persuasive message to unique susceptibilities of the group or individual to enhance message effects
- If this works, we’re OK. If it does not play, kill this slide and the next one. You will have to describe the ad, so some of the remaining material makes sense. The ad is the “THIS IS YOUR BRAIN.” It features an egg and a frying pan. After the initial line, the egg is broken and fried, sizzling, in the pan, with the line, “THIS IS YOUR BRIAN ON DRUGS!!!” ************* Here’s a link to a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub_a2t0ZfTs What do we make of this ad? Would it persuade me (or you) to avoid drug use? Intuitively, it would not In fact, the ad was memorable, but… It was ineffective in persuading youth to avoid drug use Why? The ad fails to raise a question It fails to provide an answer It does not make a strong, logical argument It does not target anyone on basis of susceptibility or prior use The ad is memorable –it is not persuasive ***************** How can we use this failure to develop a useful plan that is consistent with established theories of persuasion We expect that some of the audience will not want to agree with our message, and will (internally) counter it We view the message receiver not as a passive recipient of information – from some, we expect resistance (or, counter-argumentation) Defeating counter-argumentation is the critical function of a good message We must win the internal argument through a combination of source, message and context variations, acknowledging differences in receiver features
- Message should be tested before use in costly media campaign. Determine if preliminary tests show the message is strong and persuasive. Those who agree with us, perhaps the majority of our audience, should be reinforced for behaving properly. The ambivalent should be encouraged to resist initiation. Users should be encouraged to quit – each of these functions are best served by different messages – and this means that to be most effective in your media use, you must choose the audience to which you most wish to appeal Each of these “audiences” may a different persuasive approach; a unitary campaign, with a single focus, probably will not affect all 3 groups – so in many instances, you must choose the group you wish to influence
- Make message difficult to deny – source of message must be expert and trustworthy. Overload or distraction can make message difficult to counter, but might hamper message comprehension. Must maintain a delicate balance between distraction and non-comprehension. Misdirection message is apparently addressed to someone other than the intended audience member, who then is not as strongly motivated to reisist it. Once the information is elaborated cognitively, it is likely to have an impact if it was processed without counter-argument.
- Almost identical video message provided 2 different groups. One is apparently addressed to parents, the other to the students themselves. The “parent” message was much more effective, even though it differed only in terms of 1 word. Smoking campaign in Arizona was designed to influence parents to quit smoking, so their second-hand smoke would not affect their children. Research found that the ads were effective, but also affected youth (adolescents) as well.
- As part of the larger national anti-drug campaign in the US, parents were shown how to help their children to avoid marijuana. This had an effect on parents’ beliefs, intentions, and behaviors. It ALSO affected youths’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors!
- Three studies that test the contribution of parental impact on children’s substance misuse Study 1: Relation of parental monitoring and drug use 1094 parent-child pairs (4th-12th grade children) Positive family relations and parental monitoring were strongly associated with significantly lower drug use, (marijuana & inhalants), especially among those most knowledgeable about drugs. A similar graph could be drawn, substituting Parental Warmth for Parental Monitoring. This suggests that monitoring did not necessarily involve high levels of surveillance, but rather close knit parent-child relations that encouraged the child to disclose his or her thoughts about drugs to parents. Thus, monitoring is better viewed as parental knowledge about children’s beliefs and behaviors. – AND OFTEN, THAT KNOWLEDGE IS SUPPLIED BY CHILDREN’S SELF-DISCLOSURE OF THEIR ACTIVITIES TO THE PARENTS! This reinforces the importance of close parent-child relations. If children are willing to discuss all aspects of their lives with their parents, the parents can be a strong and positive influence on their children’s lives.
- A second study that tested the contribution of parents on children’s substance misuse Meta-analysis of 17 studies, linking parental monitoring and children’s marijuana use. Again reinforces the importance of parental knowledge, generated through close parent-child ties, over mere surveillance. File-drawer analysis shows the results were extremely strong, and almost certainly could not be attributed to chance.
- The next graph tells their story