Psychological need satisfaction and need frustration, proposed by self-determination theory, may serve as conditions that foster health-promoting and health-impairing behaviors related to cannabis use. In the present study, we examined the measurement model of psychological need satisfaction and need frustration and their associations with cannabis protective behavioral strategies use, negative cannabis-related consequences, and cannabis use severity. Data were from 1394 college students from 10 universities across the U.S. who reported past-month cannabis use. A higher-order factor model representing general psychological need satisfaction and need frustration provided a good fit to the data. Regressing the three observed cannabis outcome variables onto these higher-order latent factors, we found that greater need satisfaction was associated with more frequent cannabis protective behavioral strategies use and fewer negative cannabis-related consequences. Greater need frustration was associated with greater negative cannabis-related consequences and cannabis use severity. Further, an interaction effect between need satisfaction and need frustration emerged for each cannabis outcome such that greater need satisfaction attenuated the associations between need frustration and cannabis outcomes and greater need frustration strengthened the associations between need satisfaction and cannabis outcomes. Implications for the roles of need satisfaction and need frustration in cannabis use and future intervention development are discussed.
Keywords: Self-determination theory; cannabis; college students; psychological needs.