Though more respondents provided negative evaluations of marijuana use under the condition that it was determined conclusively to be harmful, the effect was not significant . This may have been due to other considerations that outweighed the consideration of harm and led these respondents to maintain that marijuana use is all right even if it was certainly harmful to the user . As expected, respondents reported significantly different evaluations of the stealing and music issues and justified their evaluations with moral and personal reasons, respectively. Under each of the proposed conditions , stealing was consistently evaluated negatively and music was consistently evaluated positively. Similarly, results showed significant differences between judgments of the legality of these issues: All the respondents agreed with a law against stealing and none agreed with a law against purchasing music. The results mainly supported the hypothesis that judgments about marijuana use contrast with judgments about the prototypically moral and personal issues. Although respondents’ marijuana use evaluations clearly contrasted with their consistently negative evaluations of stealing, results indicated that, like their evaluations of the music items, respondents were significantly more likely to report positive evaluations of each marijuana use item . Notably, however, their positive evaluations of marijuana use were not as consistent as their evaluations of purchasing music. Whereas all respondents provided positive evaluations of the general music question ,pruning marijuana only 57% of the sample provided a positive evaluation of the general marijuana question . Respondents’ evaluations of each of the additional questions about purchasing music were likewise more consistently positive than their evaluations to the same questions posed about marijuana use.

For example, almost all evaluations of purchasing music under the common practice condition were positive, whereas responses about the acceptably of marijuana use under the common practice condition yielded only 68% positive evaluations . Similarly, though none of the respondents agreed with a law prohibiting the purchase of music, 30% agreed with a law prohibiting marijuana use. These differences suggest that, despite respondents’ significantly more favorable views toward the marijuana items than the stealing items, evaluations of the marijuana use items were not as overwhelmingly positive as they were to the music issue. This lends support to the hypothesis that marijuana is a more ambiguous social issue as compared to the purchasing music and the stealing issues that show the more consistent response patterns expected of prototypically personal and moral issues. The hypothesis is further supported by comparing findings from the items aimed at assessing criterion judgments associated with prototypical issues to similar items regarding the marijuana use issue. Results generally followed expected patterns. Significantly more respondents judged stealing as not all right 1) in general , 2) in the case that it is legal for those ages 21 and older , nor 3) if it is a commonly practiced act . Moreover, all the respondents reported that this act should be not be legal. That the significant majority of evaluations remained negative despite these added contingencies is indicative of the moral reasoning about this issue . Responses to the music items were somewhat more variable than responses to the stealing items. This was primarily due to respondents’ compliance with the legal contingencies posed. Though still significantly higher than those who reported negative or mixed evaluations of the act, fewer respondents maintained that purchasing music would be acceptable even if there was a law prohibiting the act. Some respondents did, however, disagree with the acceptability of purchasing music if there was a law prohibiting the act. These respondents typically cited legal reasons for their negative evaluations , but often also stated that such a law would be unfair or unwarranted.

These results suggest that, while most respondents thought of music-purchasing as a non-moral issue that should not be part of the conventionally regulated system , some felt that the legal prohibition of an act was enough to make the act unacceptable. Responses to the criterion judgment questions for the stealing and music issues were compared with similar questions about marijuana use and were expected to demonstrate differences. It was hypothesized, that because marijuana use is an ambiguous social issue, there would be greater variability among evaluations of this issue under the various contingencies than among evaluations of the stealing and music issues. This hypothesis was partially supported. Respondents provided a mix of positive, negative, or depends evaluations of marijuana when asked to consider whether marijuana use would be all right in the presence of a law prohibiting use, or in the absence of a law prohibiting use. This variability in evaluations contrasts with findings from the stealing and music items , which respectively showed significantly higher negative and positive evaluations despite the legal contingency conditions. This suggests that respondents’ evaluations of marijuana use were more susceptible to conditions of legality. On the other hand, respondents maintained positive evaluations of marijuana under the common practice condition posed; significantly more respondents reported that marijuana use would be all right even in places where it was not commonly practiced. Taken together, these findings suggest that the legality of marijuana showed a greater impact on their positive evaluations than did the common practice condition . A review of respondents’ justifications also provided evidence for the hypothesis that marijuana use is an ambiguous issue that contrasts with prototypically moral and personal issues, which are more consistently judged within their respective domains. As expected, evaluations of stealing were explained by references to the moral domain justifications . The music items, on the other hand, were mostly justified by references to the Personal Choice category.

Comparisons of these effects were significant; that is, the moral domain justifications were more likely than expected to be referenced for the stealing items than for the marijuana use or music item sets, and the personal domain justification was more likely to be referenced for the music items than for the marijuana use or stealing item sets. In contrast to the stealing and music items, justifications for marijuana use items showed greater heterogeneity ,trimming weed plants thereby suggesting the ambiguity of the issue. Whereas justifications for the stealing and music items were significantly more likely to reference the moral domain and the personal domain, respectively, justifications of marijuana use, were equally as likely to reference the prudential and conventional domains. These findings are generally consistent with results from previous research suggesting that adolescents report a mix of domain considerations when reasoning about marijuana or drug use . Moreover, marijuana use justifications spanned a greater number of justification categories; considerations of the medical use of marijuana, the commonality or acceptability of marijuana use practices, the system of shared expectations around use, self-imposed physical consequences related to marijuana use, and individuals’ preferences and rights to choose were all frequently referenced when reasoning about marijuana use. This is in contrast with the stealing and music items set that showed considerably higher Justice/Rights justifications and the Personal Choice justifications, respectively. Findings from the present study thus suggest that marijuana use is an ambiguous social issue that elicits multi-domain considerations. These multi-faceted considerations may in turn result in more variable judgments of this issue than of prototypical issues.Some results were inconsistent with hypothesized findings or otherwise were surprising. Overall, respondents in this sample provided a higher number positive evaluations of marijuana use across the survey’s proposed questions/conditions. Though evaluations of marijuana use were not as homogenous as they were for the stealing and music issues, that respondents provided significantly more positive evaluations of marijuana use across this item set was somewhat surprising. Respondents were expected to report greater variability in their evaluations to these items, especially to items proposing breaks from conventional norms . Respondents’ positive evaluations of marijuana use under the absence of common practice condition were particularly surprising; evaluations of marijuana use did not significantly shift in the expected direction with the introduction of this condition. While some respondents reasoned that it is important to maintain shared expectations and avoid disrespecting others by engaging in acts considered inappropriate or unacceptable in that context, the majority did not think that the absence of commonality/acceptability necessarily made the act not all right. This suggests that, for this sample of adolescents, these considerations were insufficient for a negative act evaluation. However, as discussed above, the legal status of the act did effect evaluations in the expected directions. Certain results from the harm manipulation conditions were also particularly interesting.

For the respondents who believed that marijuana use was not harmful, the hypothetical condition of the certainty of harm did not have as significant of an impact on act evaluations as expected: Responses to this item were mixed, suggesting that the certainty of harm was not enough to result in significantly higher negative act evaluations as was expected. However, it is important to note the mixed evaluations of marijuana use under the condition of certain harm did in fact contrast with respondents’ initial general evaluations of marijuana use, which was overall significantly positive. Thus, though not enough to significantly sway the response pattern in the negative direction, the mix of responses to this item does suggest that the addition of the harm condition had some degree of impact on evaluations.The present study was founded on two primary concepts from social domain theory: that some social issues are multi-faceted and that informational assumptions play an essential role in judgment formations . These concepts provide structures for understanding the process of adolescents’ reasoning about non-prototypical social issues and the bases for their judgments about these issues. The findings from this study demonstrate adolescent reasoning about ‘ambiguous’ issues, as well as the role of informational assumptions in reasoning about social issues relevant to their age group .According to social domain theory, the adolescent period is one in which individuals expand their capacity for incorporating and assimilating the myriad of facets that may be involved in a single issue . These multiple facets may be considered and weighed against one another to arrive at a judgment that accounts for the various circumstantial components of the issue: “Decision-making involves weighing and balancing different considerations and goals in particular situations. The decision making process is not bounded within a domain, but includes a coordination of different domains like morality, prudence, convention, and personal jurisdiction. A variety of judgments, which coexist across ages, are brought to bear in making decisions” . Thus, there are processes of coordinating social concepts that can take many forms depending on the time and/or circumstances in which the issue is examined and on the salience of the various facets the individual has come to associate with the issue. The results of this study suggest that there is need for further research into the coordination processes undertaken when reasoning about ambiguous issues like marijuana use. Greater understanding of how individuals coordinate the various facets of issues can offer insights into relative the salience and impact these facets have on judgments, and ultimately, behaviors. The multiple cross-domain justifications adolescents frequently provided for their evaluations, and the shifts that took place in their evaluations as various hypothetical conditions were placed on the issue, were indicative of the factors associated with issue for these respondents. It may be that these respondents balanced these considerations against one another to form a judgment. Not only did respondents often recognize and explicitly state that there were various factors that should be considered when justifying their responses, but they at times were unable to settle on a positive or negative evaluation . Moreover, their statements typically communicated that the circumstances that were posed in the contingency questions were influential to their reasoning and judgments, or were at least considered and then dismissed as less crucial to their than other relevant factors. These qualitative components of the findings may be indicative of the composition of the coordination process involved in these adolescents’ reasoning.This was suggestive of the ambiguities involved in this issue, especially as compared to their more homogenous judgments of the prototypically moral issue . As reviewed in the Introduction, Turiel et al. explain that the uncertainties of the differing assumptions associated with these non-prototypical issues gives them their ambiguous character.