Making Decisions With Trees: Examining Marijuana Outcomes Among College Students Using Recursive Partitioning
Keywords
marijuana consequences; marijuana identity; norms; protective behavioral strategies; recursive partitioning
Abstract
Exploratory analyses were used to identify a unique constellation of variables that are associated with marijuana use outcomes among college students. We used recursive partitioning to examine more than 100 putative antecedents of lifetime marijuana user status, past-month marijuana user status, and negative marijuana-related consequences. Participants (N = 8,141) completed measures online across 11 sites in the United States. Norms (descriptive, injunctive, and internalized norms) and marijuana identity best distinguished marijuana users from nonusers (i.e., lifetime/past month), whereas marijuana use frequency, use of protective behavioral strategies, and positive/negative urgency best distinguished the degree to which users reported negative consequences. Our results demonstrate that tree-based modeling is a useful methodological tool in the selection of targets for future clinical research. Additional research is needed to determine if these factors are causal antecedents, rather than consequences or epiphenomena. We hope this large sample study provides the impetus to develop intervention strategies targeting these factors.
Publication Date
9-1-2018
Publication Title
Clinical Psychological Science
Volume
6
Issue
5
Number of Pages
744-754
Document Type
Article
Personal Identifier
scopus
DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702618775405
Copyright Status
Unknown
Socpus ID
85053604531 (Scopus)
Source API URL
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85053604531
STARS Citation
Wilson, Adam D.; Montes, Kevin S.; Bravo, Adrian J.; Conner, Bradley T.; and Conner, Bradley T., "Making Decisions With Trees: Examining Marijuana Outcomes Among College Students Using Recursive Partitioning" (2018). Scopus Export 2015-2019. 10292.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/scopus2015/10292