Associations Among Motives for Cannabis Use, Expectancies of Cannabis Use and Chronic Pain in a Young Adult Sample

Nationally representative data indicate that cannabis use and chronic pain are both highly prevalent in young adults aged 18-24. Preliminary research suggests that young adults use cannabis for pain relief. Additional research regarding the motives and expectancies of cannabis use in this population are needed to better understand the associations among cannabis use motives, expectancies of cannabis use and chronic pain in young adults. The purpose of this study was to extend prior work on pain, cannabis use motives and expectancies in young adult cannabis users in order to inform efforts towards prevention and intervention for both cannabis use and chronic pain. Young adults aged 18-24 were recruited for this study using an online convenience sampling platform, Amazon’s MTurk, where participants were recruited in exchange for monetary compensation. Participants completed a series of validated psychological measures regarding pain (Graded Chronic Pain Scale), cannabis use motives (Marijuana Motives Questionnaire) and expectancies for cannabis use (Marijuana Effect Expectancy Questionnaire). Multiple linear regressions were run to test associations between cannabis variables and chronic pain. Gender by pain interactions were evaluated to test for gender differences within the multiple linear regression models. After controlling for relevant sociodemographics and hazardous cannabis use, pain was uniquely associated with coping, conformity, expansion, routine and pain motives (ps ≤ 0.002). Additionally, pain was associated with expectancies for global negative effects (p = 0.000). These findings suggest that although young adults who experience pain may expect greater negative effects of cannabis use (e.g., mood swings, carelessness, short-tempered) they may also hold unique pain-related motives for their cannabis use. Researchers and clinicians should consider assessing pain in the context of cannabis use studies and interventions.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2021/1014/thumbnail.jp

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

Hazardous drinking is associated with expectancies for the simultaneous use of alcohol and e-cigarettes

Background: Alcohol and tobacco use are especially prevalent among college students, with co-use rates being as high as 59% (Weitzman, 2005). Related adverse health outcomes are further magnified during simultaneous use. Expectancies for substance use are consistently associated with heaviness of use and substance-related consequences. Therefore, the current study examined associations between expectancies for e-cigarette use and heaviness of alcohol use. Methods: College students (N = 362; Mage = 19.32, SD = 0.98, 72% Female) completed psychological measures (i.e. The Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Nicotine and Other Substance Interaction Expectancies-E-cig Revised (NOSIE-ER). Results: Half (51%) of participants endorsed both lifetime e-cigarette and alcohol use. Of these, 30% use an e-cigarette at least once a month and 62% report hazardous drinking (AUDIT ≥ 8). AUDIT scores were associated with expectancies that drinking increases e-cigarette consumption (r=.29, p \u3c .001), with expectancies that e-cigarette consumption increases drinking (r=.17, p \u3c .05), and with overall expectancies for the simultaneous use of alcohol and e-cigarettes (r=.30, p \u3c.001). Conclusions: Results suggest that as college students engage in more hazardous drinking, they report greater expectancies for simultaneous use of alcohol and e-cigarette. Future studies should use experimental paradigms to test causal links between alcohol and e-cigarette use, especially across individuals with varying degrees of alcohol and nicotine consumption.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_spring2020/1092/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

Sociology of low expectations: Recalibration as innovation work in biomedicine

"This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm). "Social scientists have drawn attention to the role of hype and optimistic visions of the future in providing momentum to biomedical innovation projects by encouraging innovation alliances. In this article, we show how less optimistic, uncertain, and modest visions of the future can also provide innovation projects with momentum. Scholars have highlighted the need for clinicians to carefully manage the expectations of their prospective patients. Using the example of a pioneering clinical team providing deep brain stimulation to children and young people with movement disorders, we show how clinicians confront this requirement by drawing on their professional knowledge and clinical expertise to construct visions of the future with their prospective patients; visions which are personalized, modest, and tainted with uncertainty. We refer to this vision-constructing work as recalibration, and we argue that recalibration enables clinicians to manage the tension between the highly optimistic and hyped visions of the future that surround novel biomedical interventions, and the exigencies of delivering those interventions in a clinical setting. Drawing on work from science and technology studies, we suggest that recalibration enrolls patients in an innovation alliance by creating a shared understanding of how the “effectiveness” of an innovation shall be judged.This project was funded by the Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Trust Biomedical Strategic Award 086034)

The Sociology of a Market Analysis Tool: How Industry Analysts Sort Vendors and Organize Markets

The information technology (IT) marketplace appears to be shaped by new kinds of specialist industry analysts that link technology supply and use through offering a commodified form of knowledge and advice. We focus on the work of one such organisation, the Gartner Group, and with how it produces a market analysis tool called the ‘Magic Quadrant’. Widely circulated amongst the IT community, the device compares and sorts vendors according to a number of more or less intangible properties (such as vendor ‘competence’ and ‘vision’). Given that potential adopters of IT systems are drawn to assess the reputation and likely behaviour of vendors, these tools play an important role in mediating choice during procurement. Our interest is in understanding how such objects are constructed as well as how they wield influence. We draw on the recent ‘performativity’ debate in Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Finance to show how Magic Quadrants are not simply describing but reshaping aspects of the IT arena. Importantly, in sketching this sociology of a market analysis tool, we also attend to the contested nature of the Magic Quadrant. Whilst Gartner attempt to establish this device as an ‘impartial’ and ‘legitimate’ arbiter of vendor performance, it is often viewed sceptically on the grounds that industry analysts are not always independent of the vendors they are assessing. Paradoxically these devices remain influential despite these sceptical assessments

Technology choice and its performance: Towards a sociology of software package procurement

Technology Acquisition is an important but neglected issue within the social science analysis of technology. The limited number of studies undertaken reproduce a schism between rationalist (e.g., economic) forms of analysis, where the assumption is that choice is the outcome of formal assessment, and cultural sociological approaches which see choice as driven by the micro-politics of the organisational setting, interests, prevalent rhetorics, fads, etc. While sympathetic to the latter critical view, we are dissatisfied with the relativist portrayal of technology selection: that decisions, beset with uncertainties and tensions, are divorced from formal decision making criteria. Influenced by Michel Callon’s writing on the ‘performativity’ of economic concepts and tools, we argue that formal assessment has a stronger relationship to technology decisions than suggested by cultural sociologists. We focus on a procurement which is characterised by high levels of organisational tension and where there is deep uncertainty about each of the solutions on offer. We show how the procurement team are able to arrive at a decision through laboriously constructing a ‘comparison’. That is, they attempt to drag the choice from the informal domain onto a more formal, accountable plane through the mobilisation and performance of a number of ‘comparative measures’ and criteria. These measures constituted a stabilised form of accountability, which we describe through the metaphor of a ‘scaffolding’, erected in the course of the procurement. Our argument is threefold: first, we argue that comparisons are possible but that they require much effort; second, that it is not the properties of the technology which determines choice but the way these properties were given form through the various comparative measures put in place; and finally whilst comparative measures might be imposed by one group upon others in a procurement team, these measures remain relatively malleable

Autism research : An objective quantitative review of progress and focus between 1994 and 2015

The nosology and epidemiology of Autism has undergone transformation following consolidation of once disparate disorders under the umbrella diagnostic, autism spectrum disorders. Despite this re-conceptualization, research initiatives, including the NIMH's Research Domain Criteria and Precision Medicine, highlight the need to bridge psychiatric and psychological classification methodologies with biomedical techniques. Combining traditional bibliometric co-word techniques, with tenets of graph theory and network analysis, this article provides an objective thematic review of research between 1994 and 2015 to consider evolution and focus. Results illustrate growth in Autism research since 2006, with nascent focus on physiology. However, modularity and citation analytics demonstrate dominance of subjective psychological or psychiatric constructs, which may impede progress in the identification and stratification of biomarkers as endorsed by new research initiatives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

State, community and the negotiated construction of energy markets: Community energy policy in England

This article provides fresh insight on the political construction of markets through empirical analysis of community energy in the UK. It considers the diverse actors, understandings, processes and technologies enrolled in market creation, stabilisation and correction, while emphasising how negotiation, mediation and translation are pervasive throughout. Our starting point is an exploration of the role of the state in managing processes of socially embedding and disembedding markets, and how tensions between ideological commitments to deregulation and the social necessity of intervention are addressed by governing at a distance, in this example through the conveniently malleable notion of ‘community’. We draw attention in particular to the variegated manifestations of these processes and the plurality of actors and logics operating within the ‘black box’ of the state, as well as within and between markets and civil society. We reveal how negotiation between competing logics – the impulse to marketise and its diverse others – can be observed across different forms of organisation and action. We argue that such deliberations can be seen as fractal patterns throughout contemporary socioeconomic arrangements, emphasising how the Polanyian concept of the ‘double movement’ can be deepened through analysis of the heterogeneous associations and logics at work in ‘actually existing’ instituted action, understanding political processes as ontologically performative. Empirical material is drawn from across four research projects, each focusing on different aspects of the UK government's Community Energy Strategy, exploring the varying ways marketisation plays out through different governmental programmes