Pain-related Disability is Associated with Greater Consequences of Cannabis Use

Background: Chronic pain and cannabis use are highly prevalent in college student populations. A growing literature indicates maladaptive responses to pain are associated with problematic substance use. However, no studies have examined associations between pain-related disability and cannabis use among college students. Methods: Psychology undergraduates reported frequency of cannabis use, negative cannabis-related consequences (Marijuana Adolescent Problem Inventory [MAPI]) and pain-related disability (Graded Chronic Pain Scale- Disability Scale [GCPS]) for course credit. Linear regressions were used to test associations of GCPS scores, frequency of cannabis use and MAPI scores among the subset of participants who reported cannabis use (N = 167). Results: Regression analysis indicated that greater pain-related disability was positively associated with negative cannabis-related consequences (β = 0.264; p = 0.001), and that the association was stable across both male and female students (p = 0.251). However, frequency of use was not found to be associated with negative cannabis-related consequences (β =0.051; p = 0.520). Conclusion: Results are in concordance with findings derived from adult populations and suggest that pain may also be important to consider when assessing substance use among college students. Future studies are needed to determine causal associations between pain-related disability and cannabis use.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_spring2020/1082/thumbnail.jp

Alcohol and E-Cigarette Simultaneous Use: The Role of Motivations and Expectancies

Alcohol and tobacco are significant public health threats, which are magnified during simultaneous use (i.e., under the effects of both substances). E-cigarettes are not a harmless alternative to combustible cigarettes, yet the prevalence of e-cigarette use among college students rose 400% between 2017-2018. Additionally, around 60% of college students consumed alcohol in the past month. Simultaneous alcohol and nicotine use can result in an increased state of pleasure, which may affect rates of usage. The purpose of this study is to assess variations in patterns of e-cigarette use, outcome expectancies, and perceived pleasure from e-cigarettes as a function of alcohol use. This project is expanding on previous research that has linked hazardous alcohol consumption with greater expectancies for the simultaneous use of alcohol and e-cigarettes. Participants (N = 552; Mage = 23.57 years; 56.5% Female) were recruited on Amazon’s MTurk and completed measures of frequency/quantity of alcohol (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) and nicotine (Penn State Nicotine Dependence Index) use, expectancies for simultaneous e-cigarette/alcohol use (Nicotine and Other Substances Interaction Expectancies-Revised), and perceived pleasure and frequency of simultaneous e-cigarette alcohol/use. After controlling for age, ethnicity, college enrollment, and nicotine dependence, separate linear regression models revealed that greater alcohol consumption was associated with greater expectancies for simultaneous use of e-cigarettes/alcohol and greater pleasure from simultaneous use (all ps \u3c .015). Similarly, separate regressions revealed that as people engage in greater frequency of simultaneous use, they also report greater expectancies and greater pleasure for simultaneous use (all ps \u3c .001). Examination of squared semipartial correlations revealed that frequency of simultaneous use was more strongly related to each outcome variable than alcohol consumption alone. Findings add to a growing body of knowledge on simultaneous e-cigarette/alcohol use and have implications for interventions to reduce both behaviors.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2021/1016/thumbnail.jp

Contingencies of Value:Devices and Conventions at a Design School Admission Test

Based on a study of the admission test at a design school, this paper investigates the contingencies of aesthetic values as these become visible in assessment practices. Theoretically, the paper takes its starting point in Herrnstein Smith’s notion of ‘contingencies of values’ and outlines a pragmatist ground where cultural sociology and economic sociology meet. Informed by the literature on cultural intermediaries, the paper discusses the role of evaluators and the devices which accompany them. Whereas studies of cultural intermediaries traditionally apply a Bourdieusian perspective, recent developments within this field of literature draws inspiration from the so-called ‘new new economic sociology,’ which this paper adds to. While the admission test is easily described as a matter of overcoming “subjective” aesthetic evaluations by means of “objective” and standardized assessment criteria, the paper does not accept this storyline. As an alternative, the paper outlines the contingencies of values which are at play at the admission test, composed of official assessment criteria and scoring devices together with conventions within the world of design, and set in motion by interactions with the objects that applicants submit

The social, cosmopolitanism and beyond

First, this article will outline the metaphysics of ‘the social’ that implicitly and explicitly connects the work of lassical and contemporary cosmopolitan sociologists as different as Durkheim, Weber, Beck and Luhmann. In a second step, I will show that the cosmopolitan outlook of classical sociology is driven by exclusive differences. In understanding human affairs, both classical sociology and contemporary cosmopolitan sociology reflect a very modernist outlook of epistemological, conceptual, methodological and disciplinary rigour that separates the cultural sphere from the natural objects of concern. I will suggest that classical sociology – in order to be cosmopolitan – is forced (1) to exclude non-social and non-human objects as part of its conceptual and methodological rigour, and (2) consequently and methodologically to rule out the non-social and the non-human. Cosmopolitan sociology imagines ‘the social’ as a global, universal explanatory device to conceive and describe the non-social and non-human. In a third and final step the article draws upon the work of the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde and offers a possible alternative to the modernist social and cultural other-logics of social sciences. It argues for a inclusive conception of ‘the social’ that gives the non-social and non-human a cosmopolitan voice as well

I’m deleting as fast as I can: Negotiating learning practices in cyberspace

Learning in and through work is one of the many spaces in which pedagogy may unfold. Web technologies amplify this fluidity and online learning now encompasses a plethora of practices. In this paper I focus on the delete button and deleting practices of self-employed workers engaged in informal work-related learning in online communities. How the relational and material aspects of online pedagogical practices are being negotiated is explored. While deleting appears to be an everyday practice, understanding the delete button as a fluid object in fluid space begins to illuminate its complexity and multiple enactments. Deleting practices which work to stem the tide of information pushing itself onto screens, as well as those practices that attempt to delete traces left behind on screens and ‘in the cloud’, are examined. Actor Network Theory provides the theoretical and conceptual tools for this exploration. I conclude with observations on the politics of the delete button and implications for more sophisticated digital fluency in everyday pedagogy

Algorithms, governance, and governmentality:on governing academic writing

Algorithms, or rather algorithmic actions, are seen as problematic because they are inscrutable, automatic, and subsumed in the flow of daily practices. Yet, they are also seen to be playing an important role in organizing opportunities, enacting certain categories, and doing what David Lyon calls ‘‘social sorting.’’ Thus, there is a general concern that this increasingly prevalent mode of ordering and organizing should be governed more explicitly. Some have argued for more transparency and openness, others have argued for more democratic or value-centered design of such actors. In this article, we argue that governing practices—of, and through algorithmic actors—are best understood in terms of what Foucault calls governmentality. Governmentality allows us to consider the performative nature of these governing practices. They allow us to show how practice becomes problematized, how calculative practices are enacted as technologies of governance, how such calculative practices produce domains of knowledge and expertise, and finally, how such domains of knowledge become internalized in order to enact self-governing subjects. In other words, it allows us to show the mutually constitutive nature of problems, domains of knowledge, and subjectivities enacted through governing practices. In order to demonstrate this, we present attempts to govern academic writing with a specific focus on the algorithmic action of Turnitin

Ecologies of participation in socio-technical change: The case of energy system transitions

Studies of societal engagement with socio-technical change are undergoing a systemic turn. Rather than simply viewing public engagement in science, policy and behavioural change in terms of discrete cases, key social theories in deliberative democracy, practice theory, socio-technical transitions and co-productionist scholarship in science and technology studies (STS) are moving to consider how diverse forms of participation interrelate in wider systems. In this paper we take stock of these advances to develop a conceptual framework for understanding ecologies of participation in socio-technical and democratic systems, grounded in relational co-productionist theory in STS. The framework is illustrated through empirical analysis of a systematic mapping of participation in UK energy system transitions between 2010 and 2015. This provides the first insights into system-wide patternings, diversities and inequalities of energy participation, the significant types of interrelation between practices of public engagement within wider ecologies of participation, and their mutual construction with political cultures and constitutions. The value and implications of adopting an ecologies of participation approach are considered with respect to the theoretical, empirical and practical challenges of understanding and building more inclusive, responsible and just socio-technical (energy) transitions

Interviewing objects: Including educational technologies as qualitative research participants

This article argues the importance of including significant technologies-in-use askey qualitative research participants when studying today’s digitally enhancedlearning environments. We gather a set of eight heuristics to assist qualitativeresearchers in ‘interviewing’ technologies-in-use (or other relevant objects),drawing on concrete examples from our own qualitative research projects. Ourdiscussion is informed by Actor-Network Theory and hermeneuticphenomenology, as well as by the literatures of techno-science, media ecology,and the philosophy of technology