Another study on the contents of stereotypes was conducted by Hub Linssen and Louk Hagendoorn (1994). They included social and geographical factors in the explanation of the content of European nationality stereotypes, which were reflected in four dimensions: attributed efficiency, emotionality, empathy, and dominance. According to their findings attributed efficiency appeared to be determined by social factors such as perceived economic development and social security along with the geographical location of the stereotyped nation, attributed emotionality was solely related to the north-south location of the stereotyped national, and attributed empathy and dominance were related to perceived political power, nationalism, and to the geographical size of the stereotyped nation.
In the present study the content of stereotypes on 8 different drug-user groups is examined (Cannabis, lsd, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, amphetamine, crack, and ketamine users). Recreational drug use is the use of mind-altering substances for the purpose of altering one's mental state. Some recreational drugs are, or are accounted at least harmful to the health, and in many cases their possession and use violate the law, in contradiction with ancient cultures where drug use was looked upon as 'human nature' or in cases of excessive use as an illness, rather than as a crime bearing a threat to society. The majority of human societies throughout history have each held a tradition of recreational drug use, despite the fact that it involved atypical minority populations. Well known examples being the popularity of opium use in Asia, the presence of cannabis in virtually every culture throughout recorded history, the 'speeding mods' in the sixties, the 'tripping' hippies during the seventies or the extended use of heroin during the 1980s. The generalization of certain negative qualities such as aggression that a minority of drug users possessed at that time, and the behaviour of heroin and generally ‘hard drug’ users led societies to form stereotypes against drug use in general. Though a new phenomenon emerged during the 90s across Europe and especially in the United Kingdom where half of the youth population was shown to have tried an illicit drug by the end of their adolescence and furthermore a quarter of them were fairly regular users. Drug trying was shown to be commencing at around 12-14 years of age with incidence and prevalence to be increasing with age up until the early twenties. The range of lifetime prevalence was shown to be between 25 and 50 per cent by the age of twenty. Since there were around 3.7 million people aged between 15 and 19 years of age in the United Kingdom at that time, it means that somewhere between 0.9 million and 1.8 million of youth will have had some experience on drugs. Today's young recreational drug users are as likely to be female as male and come from all social and educational backgrounds. They cannot be written off as delinquent, street corner 'no hopers'(Parker, 1998). Thus the stereotypic content of the 'deviance theory' which categorized youth subcultures to be morally 'bad' should not be used in the same way as it was in the late 70s where gay, lesbian or alcoholic social minorities were stigmatized. The deviancy theory then proved how through the power of definitions, classification, and prosecution certain individuals, behaviours and lifestyles could become, in the eyes of the majority, highly stigmatized. The explanation introduced by developmental psychologists seeing drug use as a sign of abnormality while attempting to identify risk factors which led to it, was also disproved by the later findings. This abnormality theory was drawn from observations of individual drug users with early and persistent behavioural problems, aggressive behaviour, academic failure or low bonding to the family and then generalized to the majority of youth drug use. These and many other evaluations of the reasons for which this social transformation occurred cannot be accounted as valid anymore. ‘This debate is a closed discourse dominated by a particular set of ideas and beliefs about the nature of drugs and the fate of those who take them’. (Parker, 1998)
In order to analyse in depth the basis and reasons of this social transformation Parker et al., 1998 carried out a multi-year study during which they tracked, several hundred young people from the age of fourteen (youth) until the age of eighteen (early adulthood) with the aid of both quantitative and qualitative methods(self-report questionnaires, interviews). The aim of this study was to investigate in depth how ‘ordinary’ young people, growing up in England in the 1990s, developed attitudes and behaviours in relation to recreational drugs accompanied by alcohol and tobacco. Supported by the findings of their research Parker et al., 1998, developed their normalisation thesis suggesting that the use of specific recreational drugs, primarily cannabis accompanied by nitrites, lsd and dance drugs (amphetamines and ecstasy) has been normalised. By the concept of normalisation, they referred to the way a ‘deviant’, often subcultural, population or their ‘deviant’ behaviour is able to be accommodated into a larger grouping or society (Parker et al. 1998). One of the key features of their normalization thesis is the drug availability existing in our society. The majority of their participants had been in situations where drugs were available to buy or use, while progressively all of them had been is such situations by the age of eighteen. They also pointed out the rising on the number of drug seizures which indicated the enormous scale of drug trafficking and demand. Similarly, self-report research techniques yielded an increase of drug trying until the age of eighteen by approximately 40%. Youths are growing up drug wise showing intellectual maturity. All participants drew distinctions between the unpleasant misuse of ‘hard drugs’ on one hand, and the ‘sensible’ recreational use of cannabis and to some extent lsd and dance drugs. What made this study unique is its focus on how drug use is perceived by the youth population and not how society perceives their drug use. This unique at the times structure of research produced more significant results than early ones.
The aim of our study is to examine the content of stereotypes on 8 different drug-user groups (Cannabis, lsd, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, amphetamine, crack, and ketamine users). Following Fiske et al 1999, the analysis will be performed along the hypothesised dimensions of warmth and competence, with the add of a third dimension named deviance which appeared essential for the current research on drug-related behaviors. Based on the 'deviance theory' which categorized youth subcultures including this of drug users to be morally 'bad' and stigmatized, the word deviant itself holds derogatory aspects upon drug use. Nevertheless our hypothesis departs from this of Fiske et al in respect of the relation between the dimensions of competence and warmth. Since the groups included in our study are associated with drug use (illegal, stigmatized behavior), their perceived competence is no more than positively correlated with perceived warmth. We cannot assume the occurrence of an outgroup being competent but not warm. Furthermore there is a negative correlation between the dimension of deviance and both the dimensions of warmth and competence. The more deviant (morally 'bad') one is perceived, the less liked and therefore competent he/she will be regarded as. We will also investigate Parker et al’s normalization hypothesis and expect the descriptive analysis of our data to reveal widespread use of cannabis, closely followed by the dance drugs (ecstasy, amphetamines), lsd and cocaine amongst our participants. In order to examine the hypothesis demographic data along with drug-use frequency data will be collected. In addition to these and following Parker et al’s drug pathways analysis, we will attempt to identify those engaging in current, regular and sustained drug use from those who are not but might in the future, and those who are not and have no intentions of ever trying illicit drugs, which will provide us with a more multi-dimensional analysis. For this reason participants will be divided into four groups differentiated by their attitude towards drug use in general.
METHOD
Design
An initial factorial analysis of the participant’s responses in the first section of the questionnaire will provide reliable scales with reduced data on which to base our observations. Furthermore a cluster analysis by means of a dendrogram is conducted, in order to examine whether the degree of association is strong or weak between the participant’s perceptions about the 8 drug-user groups. Also eight one-way ANOVAs are conducted one for each drug group in order to determine the differences among them related to particular attitude characteristics, while the descriptive analysis of the data will allow for Parker et al’s normalization thesis to emerge into the picture.
Materials/Survey Instrument
The study included the distribution of a questionnaire (Appendix 1) which consisted of three sections. Our interest was to obtain data reflecting society’s rather than individual participant’s views, thus in the beginning of the questionnaire participants were instructed to try to target their answers on how different drug-user groups are viewed in general by society. During the first section participants had to rate on a 1-7 scale eight different drug-user groups (cannabis, cocaine, heroin, LSD, ecstasy, amphetamines, crack, and ketamine users.), on 18 traits reflecting warmth, competence, and deviance towards these groups (fig.1). The first two dimensions, warmth and competence, were adopted from Fiske’s et all. 1999 study on the content of stereotypes, while the third one, deviance was added, as it appeared essential for the current research on illegal behaviors. As stated before the 'deviance theory' categorized youth subcultures including this of drugs to be morally 'bad', thus the word deviant itself holds derogatory aspects upon drug use. Sections two and three of the questionnaire were adopted from Parker et al’s (1998) drug pathways (Illegal Leisure). During the second section participants had to assign themselves to one of four attitude groups (fig.2) reflecting their attitude towards drug use in general. Section three was designed to measure participant’s frequency of drug use if any. During this section participants had to tick the appropriate box in the drug use frequency table (Table.1) indicating the most recent prevalence of use for each of the eight drugs being examined.
Participants
A total of 114 Middlesex university students of mixed race, age, and gender, were employed for our study. 60 of them were male and 54 female. Their mean age was 21.6 years of age, ranging from 18 to 47 while 70.3% of them were 20 to 24 years of age.
Ethics
The current experiment took under consideration all the following ethical issues: anonymity, confidentiality and voluntary participation. For the protection of participants, all participants’ responses were kept confidential, and all results were analysed anonymously. Participation was voluntary and participants could withdraw from the study whenever they wished. For ensuring the voluntary participation of our participants, a consent form (Appendix 2) was attached as a front page to the questionnaire, on which a box had to be ticked as an indication of agreement before proceeding to the completion of the questionnaire.
Figure.1 Drug-user groups and traits for survey
Drug-user groups
Cannabis Cocaine Amphetamines Ketamine
LSD Heroin Ecstasy Crack
Traits
Figure.2
1) I take drugs myself. I think drugs are ok if you are careful and know what you are doing.
2) I do not use drugs myself at the moment, but it is possible that I might in the future. I have no problem with other people taking drugs.
3) I do not use drugs myself and do not expect to. I have no problem with other people taking drugs.
4) I do not use drugs myself and do not expect to. I do not think people should take drugs.
Table.1 Drug Use Frequency Table
RESULTS
Descriptives
An initial examination of the data showed that 60.5% of the participants assigned themselves to the first attitude group (Table 2) indicating that the majority of our sample can be accounted as recreational drug users. Furthermore 11.4% chose attitude group 2, 17.5% attitude group 3 and 10.5% attitude group 4.
Table 2. Allocation to attitude groups
As it can be observed on Table 3, the most frequently used drug among our participants is cannabis with 40.4% of them having used it during the week prior to the distribution of our questionnaire, and 47.7% having used it at least once in their lives. The percentage of participants who never used cannabis was only 12.3%. Also more than half of our participants had used cocaine at least once (62.2%), while 18.9 of them used it during the week before and 21.9% used it in the year prior to our study. Similarly the majority of participants have tried ecstasy at least once (55.3%) with 21.9% having used it during the year before, 4.4% used it more than a year before, and 9.6% the week prior to the distribution of our questionnaire. Analogous results are also shown with the use of amphetamines where 51.8% of our participants have used them at least once, while 25.4% of them used the drug in an occasion longer than a year before. Also 1.8% of our participants used amphetamines during the week before, and 7.9% during the month before. A large number of participants was also shown to have used LSD at least once in the past (57%), with a small number of them having used it during the previous week or month (2.6%). 21.1% of our sample have used lsd during the year prior to our study, and 30.7% more than a year before. The picture changes when observing heroin, crack and ketamine use. None of the participants had used any of these drugs during the month prior to our study, and none had also used crack during the previous week, through which we can also observe small figures in ketamine (1.8%) and heroin (5.3%) use. Moreover 71% of the participants had never used ketamine, 69.3% had never used crack, and 63.2% had never used heroin. An interesting observation that can be made referring to the three latter drugs is that the number of participants having used them longer than a year prior to the distribution of our questionnaire decreases dramatically up until the day of the distribution.
Table 3. Frequency of drug use
Calculating the means of traits across each drug-user group provided us with an overview of the scores that the drug-user groups obtained from the participants, during the first part of our questionnaire (Table 4). This step in the analysis was essential as these means are necessary for a later Cluster analysis and moreover for the conduction of one-way ANOVA’s.
Table 4. Means of traits
Further cluster analysis by means of a dendrogram of these mean scores is conducted, in order to examine whether the degree of association is strong or weak between the 8 drug user groups (fig.3). This procedure revealed associations and structure in the data which, though not previously clear enough, are sensible and useful. The hierarchical cluster analysis showed that crack and ketamine users produced very similar responses, comprising a separate cluster along with heroin which is quite distinct from the rest of the groups. Very similar responses were also produced by LSD and ecstasy users which along with amphetamines and cocaine users comprised a separate cluster. It is interesting to observe that the ‘dance drugs’ (amphetamines, ecstasy) along with lsd produced similar responses, and moreover the way these clustered together with one of the ‘hard drugs’. Cannabis users clustered in a way with the latter groups but received very distinct responses than all groups, indicating that it holds a different place in the participant’s perception about drugs.
Figure 3. Dendrogram using average linkage (Between groups)
C A S E 0 5 10 15 20 25
Label Num +---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
LSD 2
ecstasy 5
amphetam 6
cocaine 3
cannabis 1
crack 7
ketamine 8
heroin 4
Inferential
The next part of our analysis employed a factorial design which treated each of the 8 drug-user groups as having 18 scores, one for each trait, averaged across all participants. Reducing the data required comparable trait scales for each group. Eight separate factor analyses (one for each drug-user group) examined the 18 trait ratings for each group. Out of the first four factors, oblique rotation, we identified the ones on which warmth, competence, and deviance, loaded the highest (always above .4). Friendly and companionable loaded on at least one factor for all eight groups, and sociable loaded consistently on the same warmth factor for five out of the eight groups. Competent likewise loaded consistently high on at least one factor for all eight groups, and active loaded consistently high on the same competence factor for five out of eight groups. Moreover weird loaded on at least one factor for all eight groups, disturbing loaded consistently for the same deviance factor for seven out of eight groups, along with deviant and abnormal which loaded consistently high for the same deviance factor for six out of eight groups. The rest of the items overlapped the factors and were excluded from further analysis as not discriminating enough between the factors. The reliability of the three scales was calculated using the eight groups as the units of analysis. The alphas were high for all of them.( .92 for the three warmth items, .90 for the two competence items, and .94 for the four deviance items)
During the last part of the analysis, eight one-way ANOVAs are conducted one for each drug-user group in order to determine the differences among the participants’ perceptions about the drug-user groups related to particular attitude characteristics. The first significant results were obtained on perceptions about heroin users with F(3,113) =5.601,p=0.001 significant at a=0.01 which suggested that there is at least one significant difference among the means of the 4 attitudes groups on the competence scale. Further post hoc testing revealed that the significance difference lied between groups 2 (m=4.000, sd=1.957) and 3 (m=6.100, sd=0.967) with p=0.009 significant at a=0.01. This finding indicates that people who are in the transition stage and might use heroin in the future significantly differ in their responses with those who do not take heroin and do not accept heroin use, in terms of how competent heroin users are according to society. The next significant results were observed on perceptions about cannabis users in the deviance scale with F(3,113)=6.032,p=0.001 significant at a=0.01 with further post hoc testing revealing significant differences between groups 1 (m=2.043, sd=1.265) and 4 (m=3.500, sd=1.314) with p=0.001 and also between groups 3 (m=1.750, sd=0.910) and 4 with p=0.001 significant at a=0.01. Moreover another significant result was found on the same deviance scale, with F(3,113)=6.214,p=0.001 significant at a=0.01 observable between groups 1 (m=1.927, sd=1.192) and 4 (m=3.615, sd=1.193) with p=0.001 significant at a=0.01. These results indicated that the responses of people who take cannabis significantly differ from those who have never taken the drug and disagree with it’s use, and the latter’s responses also differ significantly from those who never used cannabis but are keen with it’s use, in respect of how abnormal cannabis users are. Moreover cannabis users’ responses on how disturbing society perceives them, significantly differed from non users who oppose to cannabis use. Cocaine included the next significant result also observed on the deviance scale with F(3,113)=5.838,p=0.001 significant at a=0.01 which suggested that there is at least one significant difference between the means of the four attitude groups on the deviance scale. Further post hoc testing revealed the difference between attitude groups 1 (m=3.014, sd=1.470) and 3 (m=4.205, sd=1,292) with p=0.005 significant at a=0.01. This result indicated the significant different responses produced by cocaine users and non-users of cocaine who tolerate other people’s drug use, in grounds of how disturbing cocaine users are according to society. The last significant results were found on perceptions about ecstasy users with F(3,113)=6.119,p=0.001 significant at a=0.01 which suggested that
there is at least one significant difference among the means of the four attitude groups on the Warmth scale. Further post-hoc testing revealed that this difference lied between groups 1 (m=4.695, sd=2.060) and 4 (m=2.333, sd=1.302) with p=0.001 significant at a=0.01. The other significant ANOVA result was observed on the deviance scale with F(3,113)=6.130,p=0.001 significant at a=0.01. Further post-hoc testing revealed significant differences between attitude groups 1 (m=3.087, sd=1.845) and 3 (m=4500, sd=1.147) with p=0.008 significant at a=0.01 and also between attitude groups 1 and 4 (m=4.833, sd=2.208) with p=0.008 significant at a=0.01. These results indicated that the responses of ecstasy users significantly differed from the responses of non-users who do not tolerate the use of ecstasy in terms of how friendly ecstasy users are according to society. Also the findings indicate that non ecstasy users who tolerate it’s use by other people significantly differ in their responses with ecstasy users, and the latter also significantly differ with non ecstasy users’ responses who do not tolerate it’s use by other people, in terms of how disturbing ecstasy users are according to society.
Discussion
Initial examination of the data indicated a widespread use of drugs amongst our participants with the most favoured drug being cannabis and the less favoured one heroin. A further cluster analysis by means of a dendrogram indicated two clusters of groups one comprising of crack, ketamine and heroin users, being quite distinct from the second cluster which comprises from LSD, ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine users. Cannabis users clustered in a way with the latter groups but received very distinct responses than all groups, indicating that it holds a different place in the society’s perception about drugs. Inferential analysis produced three scales. The Warmth scale included the items friendly, companionable, and sociable, the Competence scale included the items competent and active, and the Deviance scale included the items deviant, weird, disturbing, and abnormal. Further analysis indicated several significant differences among the participants’ perceptions about the drug-user groups, related to particular attitude characteristics. In general significant differences were observed between regular drugs users and participants who do not take drugs and also do not tolerate it’s use by others, between those in the transition stage who might use drugs in the future and non-users who tolerate drug use, between drug users and non-users who tolerate drug use, and between non-users who tolerate drug use and non-users who do not. These differences were mainly observed within the drug categories of cannabis, heroin, ecstasy, and cocaine, one on the Competence scale, one on Warmth scale and the majority of them on the Deviance scale. According to our results society attributes different characteristics to ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ drug users. ‘Hard’ drug users such as crack and ketamine are perceived as much more deviant (weird, disturbing, deviant, abnormal) and less warm (friendly, companionable, sociable) and competent (active, competent) than all other groups, with the most deviant and thus less competent and warm perceived drug-user group being heroin users. On the other hand cannabis users are perceived as the most warm and competent thus less deviant than all other groups.
As expected the descriptive analysis of our data support Parker et al’s normalisation hypothesis as the vast majority (60.5%) amongst our participants are recreational drug users of cannabis, closely followed by the dance drugs (ecstasy, amphetamines), lsd and cocaine. Also supporting the normalization hypothesis is the finding which indicates that there is a large gab between the participant’s perceptions about ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ drugs. This distinction between gross misuse of ‘hard drugs’ on the one hand, and sensible recreational use of cannabis and to one extent the ‘dance drugs’ and cocaine on the other show that drug users have become drugwise.
It could be argued that the fact that current users and tolerant non users perceived all the drug groups and especially cannabis, heroin, cocaine and ecstasy users as significantly less deviant and more warm and competent than drug users who oppose drug use, is due to lack of experience or knowledge on the subject, or on the social background of individuals included in the latter attitude group. There is a possibility that these participants were grown up in families who might have been supporting the deviance theory, and which also might have provided them with social knowledge in the form of negative evaluations like ‘deviant’ about drug use, which became strongly fixed as factual impressions at a very early stage, and retained their affect in adult life.
The frustration aggression hypothesis could provide a justification of the motives that drove the participant’s perceptions about the ‘hard’ drugs to account them as more deviant and thus less warm and competent. "Frustration frequently leads to aggression and that this aggression becomes 'displaced' onto scapegoats that are quite unrelated to the source of the frustration. Outgroups are frequently blamed for one's frustrations and failures, and this displacement of aggression is often accompanied by 'projection' - that is, by the attribution to others of one's own undesirable traits."(Dollard et al 1939). Soft drugs including cannabis’ behaviors have been largely tolerated by society throughout the last decades, and combined with the intrinsic need that people exhibit to release their frustration onto groups which act as scapegoats, provide the perfect setting for the frustration that was directed on drug use in general, to be redirected in the form of social prejudice onto the remaining drug groups such as heroin, ketamine or crack users.
Perceived stereotyping between the drug groups themselves could be explained with reference to Tajfel’s social identity theory. Individuals strive to enhance their self-esteem, endeavoring for a positive self-concept. Social groups or categories and the membership of them are associated with positive or negative value connotations. The evaluation of one's own group is determined with reference to specific other groups through social comparisons in terms of value-laden attributes and characteristics. Individuals strive to achieve or to maintain positive social identity which is based to a large extent on favorable comparisons that can be made between their in-group and some relevant out-groups such that the in-group must be perceived as positively differentiated or distinct from the relevant out-groups. It could be argued that in our study the soft drugs could be perceived as the in-group and the hard drugs as the out-group.
One of the drawbacks of our study could be the small number of participants. This can be explained due to lack of resources and individual’s unwillingness to participate in general. As we developed the questionnaire in order to in-depth investigate our hypothesis, it may have been too long and laborious which explains the reasons for which individuals were not highly motivated in completing our survey. The multi-cultural nature of our sample could also be identified as a reason for many non-English individuals to not have completely understood the core objective of our study, which was to obtain data reflecting society’s rather than individual participant’s views, and thus many of the answers reflected the participants’ own views. The results of our study could have been more accurate if interviews were also included so as to verify and in-depth analyse the participants’ answers which were provided on the survey instrument.
