Correction to: Cognitive Therapy and Research (2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10375-8


The original publication includes description of the study’s method from an earlier draft that did not include changes requested by the journal Editor to reduce overlap with other publications using this sample. The correct revised Method section is presented here.

Methods

Participants and Procedures

Participants were recruited for a larger study of race-based microaggressions and substance use (Buckner, Morris, et al., 2023; Buckner, Threeton, et al., 2023; Buckner et al., in press). In Fall 2021, 65.9% of the undergraduates at this large, predominantly White institution in the Southeast identified as White, with 15.6% identifying as African American/Black. For the current study, inclusion criteria were: being at least 18 years old, identifying as African American or Black, past-month cannabis use, and evidence of valid responses (described below). Although all 125 (78.4% female) participants identified as African American/Black, participants also endorsed the following races/ethnicities: White (20.0%), Hispanic/Latin (6.4%), Asian/Asian American (4.8%), Middle Eastern/Arab American (1.6%), Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (2.4%), and American Indian/Alaskan Native (0.8%). The mean age was 19.4 (SD = 1.8, range 18–28) and 68.8% identified as straight, 20.8% bisexual, 5.6% pansexual, and 4.0% gay or lesbian. Regarding employment, 33.6% were employed part-time and 8.0% employed full-time. Year in school was: 53.6% first year, 14.4% second year, 15.2% third year, 14.4% fourth year, and 1.6% fifth year.

We recruited participants using the psychology department participant pool’s SONA system for an online study on the impact of discrimination and microaggressions among Black students. We obtained written informed consent prior to participants completing study measures using Qualtrics. We obtained approval from the university’s IRB and we awarded participants psychology course research credit for study completion.

Measures

The Racial and Ethnic Microaggression Scale (Nadal, 2011) is a 45-item self-report measure of experiences with race-based microaggressions (e.g., “someone assumed that I would not be educated because of my race”) over the past month. Items are rated in terms of degree of frequency on a Likert-type scale from 1 (I did not experience this event in the past month) to 5 (I experienced this event 5 or more times in the past month). As in prior work (Su et al., 2020), the 7 reverse-scored items were not included in the final sum; all other endorsed items were summed to create a total count of microaggressions, with higher scores indicating more microaggressions. Internal consistency was excellent in the current study (α = 0.97).

The Marijuana Use Form (MUF; Buckner et al., 2007) is a self-report measure of past-month cannabis use frequency from 0 (never) to 10 (21 or more times each week). The MUF has demonstrated convergent validity with cannabis use assessed using ecological momentary assessment (Buckner et al., 2012).

The Marijuana Problems Scale (MPS; Stephens et al., 2000) is a self-report measure of 19 past 90 day problems (e.g., problems in your family, to miss days at work or miss classes, to have lower productivity) that may have been experienced as a result of smoking marijuana from 0 (no problem) to 2 (serious problem). We summed endorsed items so that higher scores indicate greater number of problems, as in prior work (e.g., Buckner, Jeffries, et al., 2016). The measure demonstrated acceptable internal consistency in other samples of Black individuals who use cannabis (Buckner, Shah, et al., 2016; Dean et al., 2017) and in the current sample (α = 0.90).

The Marijuana Motives Measure (MMM; Simons et al., 1998) is a 25-item self-report measure of five cannabis use motives for “all the times you use marijuana” using 5-item subscales: enhancement (e.g., it gives me a pleasant feeling), coping (e.g., it helps when I feel depressed or nervous), social (e.g., it makes social gatherings more fun), conformity (e.g., so that others won’t kid me about not using), and expansion (e.g., it helps me be more creative and original). Participants rate the degree to which they smoked cannabis for particular reasons from 1 (almost never/never) to 5 scale (almost always/always). MMM subscale items are summed so higher scores indicate more cannabis use for a particular motive. MMM subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency with predominantly White samples (Chabrol et al., 2005), yet with Black samples internal consistency for some subscales been somewhat lower (Buckner, Shah, et al., 2016; King et al., 2022). MMM subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency in the current sample (conformity α = 0.90; enhancement α = 0.89; social α = 0.86; coping α = 0.90; and expansion α = 0.91).

Overt racial discrimination. In light of data indicating that name calling and being threatened or harassed are two experiences of overt racial discrimination that are distinct from microaggressions, two items from the Schedule of Racist Events (Landrine & Klonoff, 1996) that assess the frequency of these constructs over the past year were summed to crease an index of overt discrimination so that higher scores indicate more frequent experience of this type of discrimination: (1) “How many times have you been called a racist name like n______, coon, jungle bunny or other names?” and (2) “How many times have you been made fun of, picked on, pushed, shoved, hit, or threatened with harm because you are Black?” Items were rated from 1 (never) to 6 (almost all of the time (more than 70% of the time)). Internal consistency of this self-report measure was acceptable in the current sample (α = 0.73).

The Daily Stress Inventory (DSI; Brantley & Jones, 1989) is a 58-item self-report measure of stress from daily activities (e.g., “Did not hear from someone you expected to hear from”) over seven consecutive days. Number of stressful life events endorsed was summed to serve as number of non-racist life events in the present study.

The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) was used to assess negative affect. The DASS is a self-report measure of trait depression, anxiety, and stress. Each subscale contains seven items rated on a scale from 0 (Does not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much, or most of the time) that were summed; thus higher scores indicate more depression, anxiety, or stress. Subscales have demonstrated good reliability and validity (Antony et al., 1998). In the present sample, internal consistency was good for depression (α = 0.91). anxiety (α = 0.84), and stress (α = 0.80).

To identify random responders or participants who did not pay attention while completing the survey, four questions from the self-report measure, Infrequency Scale (IS; Chapman & Chapman, 1983), were used. Participants who answered at least three questions incorrectly were excluded (n = 1) per prior research using online data collection (e.g., Cohen et al., 2009).

Data Analytic Strategy

We conducted data analyses using SPSS 27. We examined data for violations of abnormality (i.e., skew > 3, kurtosis > 10; Kline, 2005); no study variable violated these assumptions (Table 1). First, we conducted zero-order correlations to test whether microaggressions were related to cannabis use motives, past-month cannabis use frequency, cannabis-related problems, depression, anxiety, and stress. Second, we used hierarchical linear regression to test the robustness of the association of microaggressions with cannabis problems. Predictor variables were: cannabis use frequency, number of non-racist stressful life events, and overt discrimination (Step 1); and microaggressions (Step 2), thereby isolating the variance attributable the Step 2 variable from that attributable to step 1 variables (Cohen & Cohen, 1983). Third, serial multiple mediator models tested whether the relation between microaggressions and cannabis use-related problems occurred via the serial effect of relevant negative affect (depression, anxiety, stress) and cannabis use motives related to microaggressions (Table 1). Serial multiple mediator models allow us to test four pathways by which the predictor variable can impact the criterion variable: directly and/or indirectly via negative affect only, via cannabis use motive only, and/or via both variables serially, with negative affect impacting cannabis motive (Hayes, 2013). Although it is best to test mediation models using prospective and/or experimental data, cross-sectional tests of theoretically relevant indirect effects can be useful (Hayes, 2018), as such tests can determine that the variables are statistically significantly related, a key criterion of causality (Garber & Hollon, 1991). Mediation was tested using the PROCESS macro in SPSS, which uses an ordinary least squares-based path analytical framework to test for both direct and indirect effects (Hayes, 2018). Specific and conditional indirect effects underwent bootstrap analyses with 10,000 resamples from which a 95% confidence interval (CI) was estimated.