This is your brain on stigma: Stigma attributions resulting from drug-related social marketing

Purpose: Stigma is a social phenomenon that has far-ranging negative effects on societal equity. Drug use stigma has been noted to be influenced by social marketing communications, but this connection has never yet been explored in depth. The Influence of Attributions theory was used as a theoretical lens to understand how social marketing communication can influence stigma. How prior experience may influence interpretation was also explored. Methodology: Social marketing messages about drug use and deterrence were explored through participant interpretations using a qualitative semi-structured interview with photo-elicitation prompts. A selection of drug use and deterrence advertising stimuli was used. The sample of 23 participants was split into a people who use drugs (PWUD) group and a non-user group. Findings: Four types of stigma attributions were found. Stigmatising attributions found were attributions of moral defect (weakness, criminality and inferiority) and attributions of blame. Non-stigmatising attributions found were attributions of normality and attributions of empathy. Disassociation, shame and guilt, scepticism, and acceptance were found as responses to the stigmatising attributions related to prior experience. Differences in interpretation were found between PWUD and non-user groups. Implications: This thesis contributes four stigma attributions influenced by social marketing messages and a model that shows the connection between attributions, response and message elements. Future research could quantify these attributions through message design experiments. Marketers may benefit from analysing potential stigmatising attributions in future work, and this new theory can assist the design of less stigmatising interventions.