Well-being and social rupture among marijuana user versus non-users

Abstract

The objective of this work was to verify if the use of marihuana is associated to search of individuation, pleasure/well-being and social autonomy processes. We adopted as reference the social representations theory, according to which individuals/groups produce knowledges/practices in order to emancipate themselves from social impositions. Sixty university students from 17 to 30 years old, marihuana users (U) and non-users (NU) took part in this research. We applied questionnaires with questions about their pleasure experiences and desire to live outside social conventions. They were requested to justify their answers and, finally, to self-introduce in a free way. Answers were thematically analized and statistically tested. We found that the U’s self-introductions were characterized by an inconformist accent mainly in social institutional terms, while the NU showed a more conventional stance in the same situations. NU considered aceptable non conventional experiences, but manifested not to feel like having them, while U tended to assert/justify experiences of at least partial social rupture. Keywords: Marihuana; social representations; self-introduction; social conventions/ruptures.