Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 1 ( 1 9 7 5 / 7 6 ) 339 - 348
339
@ Elsevier Sequoia S.A., Lausanne -- Printed in the Netherlands
SEVEN ATTITUDE SCALES USED IN ASSESSING CANNABIS USE AMONGST STUDENTS
A. K O S V I N E R
Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London, S.E.5 (Gt. Britain) D. HAWKS
Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff (Gt. Britain) (Received February 6, 1976)
Summary A number of newly constructed attitude measures are described and correlated with two previously established measures, on a sample of 830 university students. Scales were devised to measure political orientation, permissive-restrictiveness, puritan ethic, parental congruence and extra-intra punitiveness. In addition a checklist concerned with degree of social and political activity, a modified (shortened) version of Crumbaugh's Purpose in Life Test, Srole's Test of Anomie (complete), and the shortened form of the E.P.I. were used. Item loadings on the main factor in each scale and overall correlations between the scales are given.
Introduction The danger, when investigating an apparently new social phenomenon, is to focus on it too much, assume it is of key significance, and run the risk of falsely attributing it too central a role in people's lives or attitudes. Cannabis use, although in this country a relatively new happening, cannot be viewed as a unique p h e n o m e n o n requiring a correspondingly unique explanation. Rather it should be viewed within wider contexts, all the while remembering that it may not even be a very important feature of these wider contexts. The c o n t e x t may vary with the orientation of the researcher, from a macro social-political approach to a micro psychodynamic one. This brief paper will describe a number of attitude scales that were developed in the course o f a survey investigation of cannabis use among university students [1 - 3]. Their intention was to provide a broader social psychological framework within which to consider attitudes and behaviour towards cannabis.
340 Method Indications as to which broader attitude clusters might be relevant to the consideration of cannabis use were derived from pilot interviews and the literature [10, 11]. Item pools were developed using existing scales or parts o f scales, and new items where appropriate. A Likert type procedure [4] was then employed, followed by factor analyses [5]. The scales were tested on three separate university samples in all (N = 570, N "= 60, N = 830). In all cases items from all scales were randomly ordered in a single questionnaire, to minimize response sets. One standardized scale was used in its entirety (Srole's Anomie Scale [6] ) but this was nonetheless piloted on the same samples to ensure suitability. One other pre-existing scale was modified after piloting and in two other cases items from pre-existing scales were incorporated with newly constructed items. The majority of scales were specifically constructed for this study. The scales were initially refined by removing those items with poor intercorrelations with the total. The material was then submitted to factor analyses performed on all items in all scales altogether and within each scale separately. Items with the lowest communality were omitted. The final refinement was a further factor analysis of each scale on the sample of 830 students, where again items of the lowest communality were removed. In all the factor analyses the Principal Factor algorithm [ 5] was used. However, the near-equality of the item loadings in these analyses suggested that the results were not heavily dependent on this method of analysis, and would be reproduced by most factor procedures. No attempts at establishing external validity were made. Correlations between the scales are shown on Table 1. In their final form some the scales differentiated among cannabis users (and non-users) in the sample while others did not. The reader is referred to the reports of the study for these details [3].
The scales
I. Political orientation (left wing-right wing) (L-R) This scale was derived from an initial pool of 15 items, incorporating some from Eysenck's R scale [7]. When submitted to the final factor analysis the variance accounted for by the first factor was 55.5% with item loadings as follows: Item
Loading on factor 1
I Ultimately private property should be abolished and complete socialism introduced
0.818
341
"6
< ca 0
t~
.
339
@ Elsevier Sequoia S.A., Lausanne -- Printed in the Netherlands
SEVEN ATTITUDE SCALES USED IN ASSESSING CANNABIS USE AMONGST STUDENTS
A. K O S V I N E R
Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London, S.E.5 (Gt. Britain) D. HAWKS
Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff (Gt. Britain) (Received February 6, 1976)
Summary A number of newly constructed attitude measures are described and correlated with two previously established measures, on a sample of 830 university students. Scales were devised to measure political orientation, permissive-restrictiveness, puritan ethic, parental congruence and extra-intra punitiveness. In addition a checklist concerned with degree of social and political activity, a modified (shortened) version of Crumbaugh's Purpose in Life Test, Srole's Test of Anomie (complete), and the shortened form of the E.P.I. were used. Item loadings on the main factor in each scale and overall correlations between the scales are given.
Introduction The danger, when investigating an apparently new social phenomenon, is to focus on it too much, assume it is of key significance, and run the risk of falsely attributing it too central a role in people's lives or attitudes. Cannabis use, although in this country a relatively new happening, cannot be viewed as a unique p h e n o m e n o n requiring a correspondingly unique explanation. Rather it should be viewed within wider contexts, all the while remembering that it may not even be a very important feature of these wider contexts. The c o n t e x t may vary with the orientation of the researcher, from a macro social-political approach to a micro psychodynamic one. This brief paper will describe a number of attitude scales that were developed in the course o f a survey investigation of cannabis use among university students [1 - 3]. Their intention was to provide a broader social psychological framework within which to consider attitudes and behaviour towards cannabis.
340 Method Indications as to which broader attitude clusters might be relevant to the consideration of cannabis use were derived from pilot interviews and the literature [10, 11]. Item pools were developed using existing scales or parts o f scales, and new items where appropriate. A Likert type procedure [4] was then employed, followed by factor analyses [5]. The scales were tested on three separate university samples in all (N = 570, N "= 60, N = 830). In all cases items from all scales were randomly ordered in a single questionnaire, to minimize response sets. One standardized scale was used in its entirety (Srole's Anomie Scale [6] ) but this was nonetheless piloted on the same samples to ensure suitability. One other pre-existing scale was modified after piloting and in two other cases items from pre-existing scales were incorporated with newly constructed items. The majority of scales were specifically constructed for this study. The scales were initially refined by removing those items with poor intercorrelations with the total. The material was then submitted to factor analyses performed on all items in all scales altogether and within each scale separately. Items with the lowest communality were omitted. The final refinement was a further factor analysis of each scale on the sample of 830 students, where again items of the lowest communality were removed. In all the factor analyses the Principal Factor algorithm [ 5] was used. However, the near-equality of the item loadings in these analyses suggested that the results were not heavily dependent on this method of analysis, and would be reproduced by most factor procedures. No attempts at establishing external validity were made. Correlations between the scales are shown on Table 1. In their final form some the scales differentiated among cannabis users (and non-users) in the sample while others did not. The reader is referred to the reports of the study for these details [3].
The scales
I. Political orientation (left wing-right wing) (L-R) This scale was derived from an initial pool of 15 items, incorporating some from Eysenck's R scale [7]. When submitted to the final factor analysis the variance accounted for by the first factor was 55.5% with item loadings as follows: Item
Loading on factor 1
I Ultimately private property should be abolished and complete socialism introduced
0.818
341
"6
< ca 0
t~
.
