National Social Norms Institute

Articles by Year - 2008

Duffett-Leger, L.A., Letourneau, N.L., & Croll, J.C. (2008). Cervical cancer screening practices among university women. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing, 37, 572-581. go to summary

Epstein, J.A., Griffin, K.W., & Botvin, G.J. (2008). A social influence model of alcohol use for inner-city adolescents: Family drinking, perceived drinking norms, and perceived social benefits of drinking. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 69, 397-405. go to summary

Goldstein, N.J., Cialdini, R.B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). A room with a viewpoint: Using social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels. Journal of Consumer Research, 35 (3), 472-482. go to summary

Lewis, M.A., Neighbors, C., Lee, C.M. & Oster-Aaland, L. (2008). Twenty-first birthday celebratory drinking: Evaluation of a personalized normative feedback card intervention. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22 (2), 176-185. go to summary

Mahler, H.I.M., Kulik, J.A., Butler, H.A., Gerrand, M., & Gibbons, F. X. (2008). Social norms information enhances the efficacy of an appearance-based sun protection intervention. Social Science and Medicine, 67, 321-329. go to summary

Neighbors, C., Geisner, I.M., & Lee, C.M. (2008). Perceived marijuana norms and social expectancies among entering college student marijuana users. Psychology of Addictive Behavior, 22 (3), 433-438. go to summary

Neighbors, C., O’Connor, R.M., Lewis, M.A., Chawla, N., Lee, C. M., & Fossos, N. (2008). The relative impact of injunctive norms on college student drinking: The role of reference group. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22 (4), 576-581. go to summary

Nolan, J.M., Schultz, P. W., Cialdini, R.B., Goldstein, N.J. & Griskevicius, V. (2008). Normative social influence is underdetected. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 913-923. go to summary

Page, R.M., Ihasz, F., Hantiu, I., Simonek, J., & Klarova, R. (2008). Social normative perceptions of alcohol use and episodic heavy drinking among Central and Eastern European adolescents. Substance Use and Misuse, 43(3), 361-373. go to summary

Pedersen, E.R., LaBrie, J.W., & Lac, A. (2008). Assessment of perceived and actual alcohol norms in varying contexts: Exploring social impact theory among college students. Addictive Behaviors, 33, 552-564. go to summary

Reilly, D.W. & Wood, M.D. (2008). A randomized test of a small-group interactive social norms intervention. Journal of American College Health, 57(1), 53-60. go to summary

Turner, J.C., Perkins, H. W., & Bauerle, J. (2008). Declining negative consequences related to alcohol misuse among students exposed to a social norms marketing intervention on a college campus. Journal of American College Health, 57, (1), 85-93. go to summary

Wechsler, H. & Nelson, T.F. (2008). What we have learned from the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing attention on college student alcohol consumption and the environment conditions that promote it. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 69, 481-490. go to summary

Objective:
The purpose of this study was to use the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to investigate some of the factors influencing young women’s intentions to be screened for cervical cancer. This descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study examined young university women’s knowledge, attitudes, and subjective norms regarding cervical cancer, perceived behavioral control and intentions toward cervical cancer screening, and self-reported cervical cancer screening behavior.
Method:
A total of 904 young women (mean age = 20.7 years; 96.7% heterosexual), attending a university in New Brunswick, Canada participated in an online cervical cancer screening survey. The survey, given to university women 25 years of age or less, consisted of a 77-item structured questionnaire regarding demographic, descriptive, independent and dependent variable data. The survey used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and was designed to help researchers understand young women’s Pap screening intentions and behavior.
Descriptive, correlational, and logistic regression statistics were calculated and multiple regressions were performed on Intentions on Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceived Behavioral Control, and Subjective norms and on demographic and descriptive data in stepwise regression.
Results:
Results of the survey indicated that almost 72% of the sample had had a Pap test at least once in their lifetime and 68% of those were first screened by the age of 18. The majority of young women who had ever had a Pap test revealed that they had received one within the last year (85%) and most of the women learned about the screening test from a parent (39.8%) or friend (21.6%) while only 12% had received this information from a healthcare provider. The findings indicated that social norms (perceptions about whether or not people close to them think Pap screening is important) and perceived behavioral control (perceptions about personal resources or barriers to receiving a Pap test) were significantly related to young women’s intentions to be screened. This sample of women had relatively positive attitudes about the Pap test and while their knowledge about the Pap test was moderate, their knowledge about the significance of HPV was poor.
Conclusion:
The results of the current study indicate that young women are more likely to learn about Pap tests from friends and family rather than from healthcare providers, such as nurses or physicians. Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavioral Control were significantly related to young women’s Pap screening intentions, suggesting that the TPB is a good theoretical framework for exploring the factors that influence young women’s cervical cancer screening behaviors. As such, strategies designed to promote cervical screening behaviors among young university women should consider the affect of social norms and perceived barriers on Pap screening intentions in this population.
Implications for the field:
The results of this study suggest that young women are poorly informed about the risks associated with HPV and are at risk for infection. Providing young women with accurate information about cervical screening at a younger age may have a positive influence on their intentions to get a Pap test. While many young women recognize the value of regular Pap tests as an important preventative health measure, a significant proportion of them had never had a Pap test. Researchers and practitioners should test strategies to motivate the adoption of regular Pap and gynecological health screenings.

Objective:
This longitudinal study explored the role that social factors play in predicting inner-city minority adolescent drinking and used a broad array of social influences to examine the role of perceived drinking norms (related to friends, peers, and adults), drinking by family members (mothers, fathers, and siblings), and positive expectancies in promoting adolescent alcohol use.
Method:
Participants included 13 control New York City junior high schools participating in a randomized trial investigating the etiology and prevention of adolescent alcohol use. At baseline, 2,228 7th graders (mean age of 12.9 years old; 51% female, 48% black, 32% Hispanic, 7% Asian, 4% white, and 9% other) completed questionnaires that self-reported their patterns of alcohol use and potential predictors. The survey assessed other factors relevant to alcohol use, including social influences to drink alcohol and perceived social benefits of drinking. Surveys were repeated at the one year follow-up (eighth grade; 80% retention) and the two year follow-up (ninth grade; 67% retention), for a final participation of 1,318 students.
Results:
Structural equation modeling found that both family drinking and perceived drinking norms affected the perceived social benefits of drinking. In turn, the perceived benefits of drinking predicted subsequent drinking, controlling for earlier drinking. Respondents perceived that 73% of mothers, 55% of fathers, and 88% of siblings were non-drinkers. No gender differences were found on any drinking measures or any family drinking measures. Only one norm variable, peer norms, showed a significant difference based on gender. Girls rated peer norms higher than boys.
Children from two-parent households had significantly lower ratings on father’s drinking (meaning their fathers tended more toward the non-drinking side) compared with their counterparts in other households. Hispanic students rated significantly higher on all drinking measures than black students. Only the friends’ drinking norm variable showed a significant difference, with Hispanic students making higher ratings than black students. Hispanic students had higher ratings on father’s drinking than black students, reflecting more perceived drinking by fathers. Dropouts of the study drank more frequently, were drunk more frequently, and drank more often. Only two of the five social benefits of drinking showed significant differences: specifically “Kids who drink alcohol are more grown-up,” and “Drinking alcohol makes you look cool.” Both items had higher means for boys than girls.
Conclusion:
The results display the importance of the perceived benefits of drinking, as well as social influences to drink, in adolescent drinking. Norms regarding the proportion of friends, peers, and adults who drink and the availability of alcohol in the home seemed to influence adolescents’ views about the positive benefits of drinking, which later translated into adolescent alcohol use.
Early drinking contributed to greater subsequent perceived benefits of drinking for boys compared with girls and for blacks compared with Hispanics. Boys and black adolescents seemed to be more influenced by their earlier drinking in forming their perceptions of the social benefits of drinking.
Implications for the field:
The study’s longitudinal model of drinking among inner-city youth suggested that both family drinking and peer drinking were important for this understudied group. The results of this study suggest that a family-focused training prevention component should be added to school-based prevention programs to produce stronger prevention effects than a school-based only approach. Programs should also include competency enhancement approaches to alcohol use to affect drinking attitudes.

Objective:
This study investigated whether using an appeal that conveys the descriptive norm for participation in hotel conservation programs would be more effective at encouraging towel reuse than the current industry standard appeal. It also examined how hotel guests’ conformity to a descriptive norm varied related to the type of reference group tied to that norm. The authors explored whether the norm of hotel guests’ immediate surroundings (provincial norm) motivated conformity to the norm to a greater extent than the norm of guests’ less immediate surroundings (global norm).
Method:
For the first experiment, the authors created two signs soliciting participation in the towel reuse program of a mid-sized, mid-priced hotel that was part of a well-known national hotel chain. The signs were positioned on washroom towel racks and the hotel’s room attendants were responsible for collecting the participation data. One message, which was designed to reflect the industry standard approach, focused on the importance of environment protection but provided no explicit descriptive norm. A second message conveyed the descriptive norm, informing guests that the majority of other guests do, in fact, participate in the program at least once during their stay. The authors collected data on 1,058 instances of potential towel reuse in 190 rooms over an 80-day span. Each of the 190 hotel rooms was randomly assigned to one of the two different messages. Guests were not aware that they were participants in the study.
For the second experiment, the authors created five different towel reuse signs soliciting the participation of guests at the same hotel that was used in the first experiment. One sign was the standard environmental sign from experiment one, which focused on the importance of environment protection but provided no explicit descriptive norm. All four of the other messages communicated the descriptive norm (In a previous study, approximately 75% of the people who had been asked to participate in these programs did so) but varied the reference group identity. One of the signs conveyed that these norms were characteristic of other hotel guests (global norm); whereas another conveyed that these norms were characteristic of other hotel guests who had stayed in the guests’ particular rooms (provincial norm). The remaining two signs conveyed norms of reference groups that are considered to be important and personally meaningful to people’s social identities (the reference group identity of “citizen” and “gender”). The authors collected data on 1,595 instances of potential towel reuse in 190 rooms over a 53-day span. Once again, the guests were not aware that they were participants in a study and each of the hotel rooms was randomly assigned to one of the five different messages. The authors also polled a separate group of 53 participants to examine the extent to which each of their appeals activated the intended social identities and the degree to which participants felt that each of these social identities was personally meaningful to them.
Results:
Data were recorded only for guests who stayed a minimum of two nights and only the first day of participation was analyzed. For the first experiment, the researchers used a chi-square test to reveal that the descriptive norm condition yielded a significantly higher towel reuse rate (44.1%) than the environmental protection condition (35.1%). The compliance rate observed is likely an underestimation of the number of individuals who recycle their towels at least once during their stay. This is a result of only examining towel reuse data for the participants’ first eligible day and using conservative standards for counting compliance. A chi-square test for the overall differences among the towel reuse rates for the five conditions yielded a significant difference among the groups. A planned comparison revealed that all four descriptive norm messages combined (44.5%) fared significantly better than the standard environmental message (37.2%). By merely informing hotel guests that other guests generally reused their towels significantly increased towel reuse compared to focusing guests on the importance of environmental protection. An additional planned comparison revealed that the same room identity descriptive norm condition yielded a significantly higher towel reuse rate (49.3%) than the other three descriptive norm conditions combined (42.8%). This means that even though the provincial norm for the frequency of guests’ towel reuse in a particular hotel room is not any more diagnostic of effective or approved behavior than the other norms, this condition produced the highest level of towel reuse. Participation rates were highest for the reference group that participants felt was the least personally meaningful to them but the most physically proximate. The other three descriptive norm conditions— the citizen identity descriptive norm (43.5%), the gender identity descriptive norm (40.9%), and the guest identity descriptive norm (44.0%)—did not differ from one another.
Conclusions:
Appeals employing descriptive norms proved superior to a traditional appeal widely used by hotels that focused solely on environmental protection. Normative appeals were most effective when describing group behavior that occurred in the setting that most closely matched individuals’ immediate situational circumstances (provincial norms).
Implications for the Field:
Normative social identity research has previously focused almost exclusively on the importance of commonalities among personal, rather than contextual, characteristics of individuals and the groups whose behaviors they observe. The research has largely failed to address the role of situational similarities in norm adherence. The results of the two field experiments demonstrated the power of descriptive and provincial norms to motivate others to engage in environmental conservation. The superiority of the descriptive norm messages relative to the industry standard, which experiment 2 showed activated guests’ identities as environmentally concerned individuals but provided no explicit descriptive norm, suggests that making a meaningful social identity salient without providing descriptive normative information is not an optimal approach. Provincial norms may be particularly influential in that it is typically beneficial for individuals to follow the norms that most closely match one’s immediate settings, situations, and circumstances.

Hughes, C., Julian, R., Richman, M., Mason, R., & Long, G. (2008). Harnessing the power of perception: Reducing alcohol-related harm among rural teenagers. Youth Studies Australia, 27 (2), 26-35. return to list

Objective:
This study examined the preliminary findings of the Social Norms Analysis Project (SNAP), a cross-sectoral partnership of organizations that worked together to undertake the first Australian trial of a social norms campaign to reduce risky drinking and alcohol-related harm among high school youth in four rural communities in Tasmania. Tasmania exhibits some concerning trends with respect to alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm, including the largest percentage increase in alcohol-related hospitalizations between 1993 and1994 and 2000 to 2001. By the age of 14, around 90% of the Australian population has tried alcohol (White and Haymen, 2004). Previous research has indicated that youth in rural areas consume alcohol at higher levels than their metropolitan counterparts, thereby placing themselves at increased risk of “being involved in social disorder as victims or perpetrators, or both” (Williams, 1999).
Method:
The two-year trial included rural municipalities that were selected for having a “sense of community” and a focus on youth and/or problematic alcohol consumption. The municipalities also had an active local council; no more than two public high schools servicing the community; and a history of successful partnerships with the university, law enforcement agencies, and all three tiers of government. Student data was collected from students in years 7-10 at the four trial schools using a self-administered anonymous survey in mid-2006 (baseline) and twice in 2007. A total of 509 surveys from the four intervention schools were completed and analyzed. The analyses focused on the relationship between the students’ own alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors and their perceptions of others’ alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors and the student’s own experience of alcohol-related consumption and harms.
Results:
The baseline survey results demonstrate the existence of considerable misperception among the target groups at all four trial sites across a range of areas. Students underestimated the proportion of those who drank once a month or less and overestimated the proportion drinking once or twice a week or more. Similar misperceptions were observed in relation to drunkenness. As the perceived frequency of others getting drunk increased, so too did the frequency of oneself getting drunk. Infrequent drunkenness among others was significantly underestimated and frequent drunkenness was substantially overestimated. In addition, there was a strong relationship between perceived rates and self-reported rates of drinking, suggesting that students tend to drink at around the same rate as they perceive their friends to drink.
Conclusions:
The baseline SNAP results suggest that the teenagers involved in the trial (like adolescents and young adults in the United States and elsewhere) have inaccurate notions of what constitutes “normal behavior” in relation to alcohol. The authors conclude that teens’ drinking behaviors may not be driven so much by a need for peer approval or to be accepted by a group, but rather by “what is perceived of as normal behavior among one’s close friends” (Beck and Treiman, 1996).
Implications for the Field:
The preliminary findings resonate with social norms research undertaken in the United States and elsewhere in that “students tend to think that their peers are, on average, more permissive in personal drinking attitudes than is the case, and likewise that peers consume more frequently and more heavily, on average, than is really the norm” (Perkins, 2002).

LaBrie, J.W., Huchting, K., Tawalbeh, S., Pedersen, E.R., Thompson, A., Shelesky, K., et al. (2008). A randomized motivational enhancement prevention group reduces drinking and alcohol consequences in first-year college women. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22 (1), 149-155. return to list

Objective:
The study tested a group motivational enhancement approach and weekly Web-based follow-up data collection to assess the prevention of heavy drinking among first year college women.
Method:
A sample of 261 female students enrolled in the study and completed an initial questionnaire. The questionnaire assessed demographic questions, including age, ethnicity, and family income, and was also a baseline measure of drinking attitudes and consequences. Using a randomized design, the authors assigned participants either to a group that received a single-session motivational enhancement intervention to reduce risky drinking that focused partly on women’s specific reasons for drinking (n=126) or to an assessment-only control group (n=94). Control group participants attended a 30-min scheduled group session in which they completed an in-group survey on alcohol use over the past three months with no group interaction. Motivational enhancement group participants were asked to select 1 of 25 groups to attend, with enrollment on a first-come, first-served basis. All participants completed weekly online drinking diaries for the 10 weeks following the group session, recording the number of drinks they consumed each day in the past week. At the end of the 4th and 10th weeks, participants completed the RAPI to assess consequences in the past month.
Results:
The results indicate that, relative to the control group participants, intervention participants drank fewer drinks per week, drank fewer drinks at peak consumption, had fewer binge drinking episodes per month, and reported fewer alcohol-related consequences over a 10-week follow-up than assessment-only control participants. Further, the intervention, which targeted women’s reasons for drinking, was more effective in reducing consumption for participants with high social and enhancement motivations for drinking. In addition, the main effect for maximum number of drinks consumed at one time approached significance. Exploratory analyses revealed that ethnicity did not moderate intervention efficacy.
Conclusions:
In order to reduce risk in college women who drink for coping or conformity motives, it may be necessary to design interventions addressing these specific drinking styles. The findings of this study provide potentially important implications for the prevention of high-risk alcohol use during the critical transitional period from high school to college.
Implications for the Field:
The NIAAA (2002) recommends the use of motivational enhancement interventions that simultaneously address alcohol attitudes and behaviors, counter misperceptions about peer attitudes regarding drinking, and increase motivation to change drinking habits. This particular study builds on previous motivational enhancement interventions to reduce college drinking by having a first-year female-specific group-based prevention intervention, a population at increasing risk for developing heavy alcohol use patterns and experiencing negative consequences. The results suggest that targeted interventions among specific cohorts of college students are promising.

LaBrie, J.W., Hummer, J.F., Neighbors, C. & Pedersen, E.R. (2008). Live interactive group-specific normative feedback reduces misperceptions and drinking in college students: a randomized cluster trial. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22 (1), 141-148. return to list

Objective:
This study evaluated the efficacy of a live and interactive group-specific normative feedback intervention designed to correct misperceptions of alcohol-related group norms and subsequently reduce drinking behavior.
Method:
Twenty Greek and service organizations containing 1,162 college students were randomly assigned to intervention or assessment-only control conditions. Participants in the intervention condition attended an intervention during their organization’s regular standing meeting. Data were gathered using computerized handheld keypads (“clickers”) into which participants entered personal responses to a series of alcohol-related questions assessing perceptions of normative group behavior as well as actual individual behavior. These data were then immediately presented in graphical form to illustrate discrepancies between perceived and actual behavioral group norms. Participants were encouraged to examine their personal perceptions and behaviors compared with the actual norms. Follow-up data was collected via online survey at one and two month post-intervention for the intervention condition group and post-initial survey for the control condition groups. The study did not include students in the intervention condition who were not exposed to the intervention in the analyses of the follow up data.
Results:
The findings of the study indicated that compared with the control group, the intervention group reduced drinking behavior and misperceptions of group norms at one month and two month follow-ups after using the interactive polling system. Men and women did not differ with respect to post-intervention drinking after controlling for baseline differences.
Conclusions:
The results demonstrate that the interactive polling system approach appears to be most effective among students who start out with large group-specific normative misperceptions and that reductions in misperceptions mediate actual changes in drinking. This approach produces data on demographic and drinking questions that are equivalent to the data generated by the same questions when posed in traditional confidential surveys. The immediate visual presentation of responses increased participants’ interest in and believability of subsequent responses.
Implications for the Field:
The study demonstrates the effectiveness of a novel, technologically advanced, group-based, brief alcohol intervention that can be implemented with entire groups at relatively low cost.

Objective:
This research was designed to evaluate the efficacy of a personalized normative feedback birthday card intervention aimed at reducing normative perceptions, alcohol consumption, and negative consequences associated with 21st birthday celebrations among college students. The research extended previous examinations of extreme drinking associated with 21st birthday celebrations by exploring drinking context and alcohol-related consequences in connection with this event.
Method:
The study employed a randomized trial evaluating the impact of the birthday card on 21st birthday perceived norms, drinking, and related consequences as compared with an assessment-only control condition. The researchers randomly assigned students turning 21 (n = 1,313) during one academic year at a mid-sized, mid-western university to receive (n = 430) or not receive (n = 410) a birthday card and eBAC calculator about one week prior to the date of their 21st birthday. The birthday card presented three key pieces of information 1) perceptions of the number of drinks consumed by the typical student while celebrating his or her 21st birthday, 2) the actual number of drinks consumed by the typical student while celebrating his or her 21st birthday, and 3) the number of drinks the student intended to consume while celebrating his or her own 21st birthday. This information was intended to show the discrepancy between the normative misperception and the deviation from the drinking norm.
Approximately one week following their birthday, students were asked to complete a brief anonymous survey concerning their birthday celebration activities. The survey included questions regarding demographics as well as the number of drinks consumed, hours spent drinking, and negative consequences occurring during their 21st birthday celebration. Students were also asked their perception of the number of drinks consumed by the typical student during a 21st birthday celebration as well as questions regarding whether they received, read, and liked the birthday card and the card’s impact on their birthday celebration.
Only students who reported 1) consuming at least one drink on their birthday (n = 244) and 2) receiving and reading the card (n = 235) and 3) whose eBAC information could be determined (n = 187) were included in the primary outcome analysis. Among these students (64.7% women, 94.2% Caucasian), the final survey response rate was 20.9% for those who received the card and 23.7% for those who did not receive the card.
Results:
The findings indicated that the birthday card intervention was not successful at reducing drinking or consequences; however, the card did reduce normative misperceptions. Contrary to expectations, students who received the birthday card did not report less drinking behavior compared with students who did not receive the card. This finding is consistent with participants’ perceptions of the effect of the card on their birthday drinking behavior. Participants reported that they liked the card but that the card had little impact on their birthday drinking plans. On the other hand, consistent with expectations, students who received the card had lower or more accurate normative perceptions of the number of drinks the typical student consumed while celebrating his or her 21st birthday compared with those who did not receive the card. Students with lower or accurate perceptions spent fewer hours drinking, consumed less alcohol, and reached lower eBACs compared with students with higher perceptions.
Conclusions:
Although the 21st birthday personalized normative feedback card was not effective at reducing 21st birthday drinking or problems, it can change 21st birthday perceived norms. Prevention efforts other than a birthday card are needed for reducing problematic drinking associated with turning 21.
Implications for the Field:
Brief motivational interviewing (MI) interventions have been found to be efficacious in reducing alcohol use and negative consequences in college students. Future interventions may need to be multi-component and explicitly presented and use actual drinking behaviors instead of intentions. Campaigns need to take into account environmental factors that may contribute to 21st birthday drinking behavior such as location, policy changes, or public media campaigns and should use a more socially proximate normative referent (e.g., same-sex peers) instead of distal referents (e.g., typical college student). Personal normative feedback may work better using computerized or in-person formats where responses are more directly tailored and more clearly present discrepancies related to normative misperceptions and drinking behavior.

Objective:
This study examined whether the efficacy of an appearance-based sun protection intervention could be enhanced by the addition of injunctive and/or descriptive norms information. Researchers examined whether young adults who received photoaging information and viewed their UV photograph would be more likely to modify their sun protection behaviors when informed that most of their peer group generally engaged in a substantial sun protection.
Method:
University of California, San Diego college students (N= 125, predominantly female, aged 18 to 38 years) were randomly assigned to either an appearance-based sun protection intervention that consisted of a photograph depicting underlying sun damage to their skin (UV photo) and information about photoaging or to a control condition. Those assigned to the intervention were further randomized to receive information about what one should do to prevent photoaging (injunctive norms information), information about the number of their peers who currently use regular sun protection (descriptive norms information), both injunctive and descriptive norms information, or neither type of norms information. Perceived susceptibility to photoaging and future sun protection intentions were assessed immediately following the intervention. Participants were also assessed regarding their sun protection behaviors via telephone approximately one month after the intervention.
Results:
The results demonstrated that those who received the UV photo/photoaging information intervention expressed greater sun protection intentions and subsequently reported greater sun protection behaviors than did controls. Relative to controls, nearly twice as many of those who received the UV photo/photoaging information intervention increased their sunscreen use on their face and nearly three times as many increased their frequency with which they used sunscreen on their body in the month following the intervention. All four intervention conditions resulted in significantly greater perceived susceptibility to photoaging relative to controls and a greater chance of discussing sun protection with friends and family in the month following the intervention. Further, the addition of both injunctive and descriptive norms information increased self-reported sun protection behaviors during the subsequent month.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrated the efficacy of the UV photo/photoaging information intervention may be enhanced via the inclusion of social norms information. The addition of injunctive norms information (information about what one should do to prevent skin damage from UV exposure) and/or descriptive norms information (suggesting that the majority of peer group members were engaging in regular sun protection) resulted in reliably greater sun protection intentions than did the basic intervention alone. Also, the additional combination of both types of normative information increased self-reported sun protection behaviors during the subsequent month.
Implications for the Field:
The results of this experiment show that it may be possible to enhance the efficacy of the UV photo and photoaging interventions by stating what individuals ought to be doing to protect themselves (injunctive norms) and by suggesting that a high percentage of peers are actually engaging in protective behaviors (descriptive norms).

Objective:
This research examined the relationships among perceived social norms, social outcome expectancies, and marijuana use and related consequences among entering college freshman marijuana users. The authors were interested in evaluating whether marijuana use and marijuana-related consequences vary as a function of descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and social expectancies.
Method:
High school graduates who were enrolled to attend a large public university completed a brief survey during the summer prior to attending college (N = 2,123). The survey was used to screen students for potential eligibility for a longitudinal study examining the efficacy of a Web-based marijuana prevention program for the transition to college. The screening assessed demographics, engagement in risk behaviors, and psychosocial measures. Students who reported using marijuana at least once in the last 90 days prior to screening were asked to join a larger intervention study. Eligible participants (N = 312, 55% female, 76% white) completed a baseline online assessment one month prior to the beginning of college regarding their marijuana use, related consequences, perceived norms, and social expectancies related to marijuana use. In addition, students were asked questions regarding descriptive norms (“How often do you think your friends typically use marijuana?”) and injunctive norms about their perceptions of how their close friends would feel about their level of marijuana use.
Results:
The results suggested that perceptions of friend’s marijuana use were most strongly associated with marijuana use in comparison with perceived injunctive norms or expectancies and that the perception that other students used marijuana more frequently was more strongly associated with use among students who also perceived other students as more approving of marijuana. In addition, the relationships between perceived descriptive and injunctive norms and marijuana use were stronger among students who reported more positive marijuana expectancies. Descriptive norms and expectancies were both positively associated with marijuana-related consequences, but, injunctive norms were negatively associated with consequences. Students reported using marijuana (on average) 11 out of the past 90 days and experiencing two marijuana related problems. Gender differences were found for marijuana use, with men reporting more days used (13.24 days) than women (8.89 days). There were no gender differences on the experience of marijuana related problems.
Conclusion:
The results highlight the importance of distinguishing between descriptive and injunctive norms and between marijuana use and related consequences. Descriptive and injunctive norms were uniquely and positively associated with use, and both types of norms were more strongly associated with use in comparison with expectancies.
Implications for the field:
Additional research that evaluates social influences on marijuana use is needed. Longitudinal examination of the variables would help researchers to better understand the causal association between perceived norms, marijuana use, and consequences.

Objective:
This research evaluated the importance of reference groups in considering the relationships between injunctive norms and alcohol consumption for college student drinkers.
Method:
Participants for the study included 811 first-year college students who completed baseline online assessments in a larger study evaluating the efficacy of a Web-based social norms alcohol education intervention during the transition to college. All participants met screening criteria for heavy drinking in the month prior to the initial survey. Students completed online assessments of their drinking behavior, as well as their perceptions of the approval (injunctive norms) and prevalence (descriptive norms) of drinking by others. Injunctive norms were evaluated with respect to typical students, typical same-sex students, friends, and parents. Descriptive norms were evaluated with respect to typical students and typical same-sex students.
Results:
Results suggested that for injunctive norms, only perceptions of proximal reference groups (friends and parents) are positively associated with drinking behavior. However, when considered in the context of multiple referents and norms, injunctive norms for more distal groups (typical students/same-sex students) were negatively associated with personal drinking, whereas descriptive norms for distal referents remained positively associated with drinking.
Consistent with prior research, men and women perceived that other students drink more than they do. Men drank more heavily than did women and perceived that other men drink more than does the typical student, while women perceived that other women drink less than does the typical student. Men also perceived that the typical student, typical same-sex student, and (to a weaker degree) their friends approved more of risky drinking than they themselves did. Women approved less of risky drinking and perceived that the typical same-sex student and friends approved less of risky drinking but perceived that the typical student approved more of risky drinking. Men and women did not differ in their perception of how much the typical student drinks
Own alcohol use was correlated with descriptive norms, own approval, and the injunctive norms. Specifically, perceptions about the typical student’s and typical same-sex student’s drinking were positively correlated with own use. Also, one’s own approval of risky drinking and perceived approval by the typical same-sex student, friends, and parents were positively correlated with own drinking. Perceived approval by the typical student was unrelated to own alcohol use.
Conclusions:
Greater personal approval of risky drinking and greater perceived approval of drinking by friends and parents were all significantly and positively associated with students’ own heavy drinking when examined alone and in the context of other injunctive and descriptive norms predictors. Subjects were more likely to care about and have a relatively accurate sense of more proximal others’ approval of drinking, such as their friends and parents, than with those who they did not closely interact.
Implications for the Field:
The results suggest that injunctive norms have a more complex association with one’s own drinking behavior than do descriptive norms. Therefore, intervention strategies that incorporate injunctive norms may need to utilize proximal referent groups to have any meaningful impact. This would entail identifying students’ close friends and assessing approval rates of these friends. New technologies are available to make this task for feasible.

Objective:
The research investigated the persuasive impact and detectability of normative social influence in two studies. The goal of the first study was to conduct a preliminary investigation into the extent to which people’s beliefs about what motivates them to conserve energy correspond to the factors of their self-reported intention to conserve. The second study wanted to accomplish three goals: extend the research on normative social influence, assess participants’ ability to detect the influence of normative information, and test the accuracy of naïve psychology-based explanations of energy conservation. The present research examined the contention that individuals underestimate the extent to which their actions in a situation are determined by the similar actions of others.
Method:
In Study 1, the researchers surveyed 810 Californians quarterly for a 3-year period about energy conservation. Researchers conducted a large scale, stratified, telephone survey to explore respondents’ stated reasons for engaging in energy conservation and provide an initial test of the actual factors influencing participants’ conservation behavior. Study 1 survey items were designed to measure self-reported efforts to conserve energy, perceived reasons for conservation, beliefs about the broad benefits of energy conservation, descriptive normative beliefs regarding energy conservation, and demographics. The survey data was part of a larger survey of energy conservation normative and non-normative beliefs, motivations for conserving energy, and actions among Californians conducted from random-digit-dialing interviews between October 2003 and January 2004.
In Study 2, the researchers further examined the perceived influence of normative information by assessing participants’ awareness of the extent to which different messages affected their behavior. Participants included 981 households in the middle-class neighborhoods of San Marcos, California, 509 of which participated in a post-intervention interview (52%). Households were randomly assigned to receive one of five experimental messages: descriptive norm, self-interest, environment, social responsibility, or information-only control. A total of four different energy conservation behaviors were promoted during this study: taking shorter showers, turning off unnecessary lights, turning off the air conditioning at night, and using fans instead of air conditioning.
Twenty messages, one for each of the four behaviors, were created for each of the five conditions and printed on doorhangers. Doorhangers in the information-only condition stated only that participants could save energy by adopting the behavior being promoted. In the descriptive norm, self-interest, environment, and social responsibility conditions, the doorhangers also contained factual motivational information about why the household should adopt the energy-conserving behavior (e.g., 99% of people in your community reported turning off unnecessary lights to save energy) and a graphic that symbolized the condition (e.g., a globe for the environment condition). Included in the present study are 371 households from the sample of interviewed households (73%) that reported seeing and reading the doorhangers that were distributed during the intervention. Following the distribution of the doorhangers, interviewers assessed the extent to which respondents perceived that the doorhangers had motivated them to conserve energy
Results:
Study 1 conducted a three-step hierarchical multiple regression to examine the unique contribution of descriptive normative beliefs on conservation behavior. Significant predictors were age (older participants reporting more conservation than younger ones), language of the survey (with English-speaking respondents conserving more than Spanish-speaking respondents), saving money, environmental protection, and descriptive normative beliefs. Survey results showed that the most highly rated reason for conserving energy was environmental protection, which suggests that people are motivated to conserve energy out of a concern for the environment or future generations. However, the strongest predictor of conservation was the belief that other people are doing it, despite the fact that it was rated as the least important motivating factor. The study found that descriptive normative beliefs were more predictive of behavior than were other relevant beliefs, even though respondents rated such norms as least important in their conservation decisions.
Study 2 confirmed that the positive relationship between descriptive norms and behavior in Study 1 was not simply due to a false consensus effect. Of interest, although the normative message was most effective at changing behavior compared to information highlighting other reasons to conserve, participants did not detect the influence of these messages, rating them as least motivating. Participants in the descriptive norm condition reported that the messages were least motivational. Pairwise comparisons showed that these scores were significantly lower than for participants in the environmental condition and social responsibility condition but not significantly different from the self-interest condition or the information-only condition. This pattern is similar to that found in the survey data reported in Study 1, wherein environmental reasons and social responsibility were identified as the two reasons that people believed were most influential to conserve energy.
Conclusions:
Normative information spurred people to conserve more energy than any of the standard appeals that are often used to stimulate energy conservation, such as protecting the environment, being socially responsible, or even saving money. Taken together, the results from the current studies show that normative information is a powerful but underdetected form of social influence. Normative information is a highly effective way to motivate a change in behavior but people may not be able to identify the true cause of their behavior.
Implications for the Field:
By going beyond environmental protection and social responsibility, normative messages reach a new population of individuals who might not otherwise have a reason to conserve. In addition, direct observation of others is not required for normative social influence to have its effect. Instead, communicating a descriptive norm—how most people behave in a given situation—via written information can induce conformity to the communicated behavior.

Objective:
The purpose of this study was to assess, among a sample of Central-Eastern European high school students, the estimated number of friends who drink, estimated drinking prevalence of schoolmates, and whether these estimations were related to self-reported frequency of personal alcohol use. The study addressed the congruence between these adolescent’s estimation of peer drinking and self-reported alcohol use.
Method:
Participants included 1,886 Central-Eastern European urban and rural high school students (average age of 16.5 years old) from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Romania who completed a school-based alcohol use survey in June 2005. Faculty members from four Central-Eastern Europe universities collected local data about alcohol use in secondary schools where they worked as physical education teacher trainers and mentors or through their work as student teaching supervisors. The questionnaire consisted of ten items, six of which assessed current alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking and four that assessed estimations of alcohol use by friends and schoolmates. Chi-square and ANOVA tests were used to determine relationships between the prevalence of drinking and estimations of drinking among friends and schoolmates. Data was pooled from the 22 selected schools in order to increase statistical power and to study a larger cross-section of youth living in this region of Europe.
Results:
Results indicated that drinking was related to the perception of the prevalence of alcohol use by schoolmates and by the number of friends who drink and/or engage in episodic heavy drinking. Prevalence of current alcohol use, prevalence of engaging in episodic heavy drinking, and the number of drinks of alcohol in the past weeks were associated with estimations of the drinking prevalence of male and female schoolmates. Boys and girls differed significantly on estimates of the number of friends who drink and estimates of the number of friends who are episodic heavy drinkers. In both genders, alcohol use variables were significantly associated with estimated number of friends who drink and estimated number of friends engaging in episodic heavy drinking. The prevalence of current alcohol use and the number of drinks of alcohol in the past week differed significantly according to the number of friends who drink and the prevalence of episodic heavy drinking and the times engaging in episodic heavy drinking in the past month differed significantly according to the number of friends who are heavy episodic drinkers.
Conclusion:
The results appear to indicate that Central-Eastern European adolescents lack accurate perceptions of the prevalence of alcohol use by their peers. Results showed that drinking was significantly related to perception of the prevalence of alcohol by schoolmates. The findings support the social norms model, which proposes that exaggerated misperceptions of peer risk behavior are a risk factor for personal risk behavior involvement.
Implications for the Field:
This study, in concert with others, gives evidence that the social nature of risk-taking behavior must be taken into account when designing prevention program programs targeting youth. Given that the youth in this sample overestimated the prevalence of drinking by schoolmates, prevention programmers might consider norms correction strategies which provide specific information about actual drinking norms among schoolmates. This study has interesting implications because of its context to the steady rise of alcohol-related health issues among people of the former communist countries of Central-Eastern Europe.

Objective:
This study sought to determine if individuals respond differently in varying contexts to questions assessing their own drinking behaviors and attitudes, as well as their perceptions of salient reference group’s drinking behaviors and attitudes. Salient reference groups included fraternities, sororities, and non-Greek service organizations where participants held membership. The researchers also wanted to determine if the three aspects of Social Impact Theory (proximity to group, connectedness to group, and size of group) would influence reports of actual individual drinking behaviors and attitudes.
Method:
The study examined 284 members of eight campus organizations (two fraternities, three sororities, three non-Greek service organizations) in two contexts (online and group) to determine if individuals endorse higher responses on questions of actual and perceived drinking norms across contexts. Participants completed a baseline online assessment with demographic questions about age, sex, race, campus organization, and class year. The baseline assessment also asked participants injunctive norms questions about their individual perceptions of the attitudes of their specific group, descriptive norms questions about how frequently and how much members of the group drank, and group attitude scale questions regarding how attracted the individual was to their specific group.
Sixty days after the baseline assessment, participants completed a follow-up survey that included the same questions of the initial survey to assess any changes in the perceived norms or actual behavior and attitudes. Seven days after receiving the follow-up questionnaire, participants completed a third survey with the same questions using an individual, handheld portable electronic device to record answers while a facilitator presented them on an overhead screen in a large auditorium with other members of their group.
Results:
The study found that actual individual alcohol behavior and perceptions of group-specific behaviors and attitudes differ when assessed individually versus when assessed in groups composed of peers from a salient reference group. All participants endorsed significantly higher individual drinking behavior during the assessment with members of their organization than they did during the online individual assessment. Additionally, participants’ responses on questions of actual and perceived group behavior and of perceived group attitudes towards drinking were higher during the group assessment than during the online individual assessment. These observed differences between contexts on perceived group alcohol use were more pronounced for men and for Greek students, displaying that they may be more influenced by the proximity of their peers when presented with questions regarding perceived alcohol use. These effects were evident despite facilitator assurance that individual responses were anonymous and that other students in the group could not see their responses.
Contrary to their hypotheses that students in larger groups would experience the most influence, results revealed that participants in smaller groups who had high levels of connectedness to their groups had higher perceptions of group drinking attitudes during the group assessment than during online assessment. However, participants in large sized groups with low group connectedness had higher perceptions of group drinking attitudes during the group assessment than during the online assessment. For small-sized groups, high group connectedness produced higher perceptions of group drinking attitudes during the group assessment than during online assessment. However, for large size groups, low group connectedness resulted in higher perceptions of group drinking attitudes during the group assessment than online assessment.
Conclusion:
This study highlights the discrepancy in reported behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions of group behavior and attitudes between an online assessment context and a group assessment context. While much research supports the idea that peers influence the drinking behaviors and attitudes of college students, the study finds that the presence of peers during assessment may influence responses to questions posed about perceived and actual norms and may augment their overestimations of the drinking behaviors and attitudes of their peers.
The results suggest that context of assessment needs to be considered when collecting self-report data from college students. Students tend to endorse higher responses during group assessments when surrounded by peer members of campus organizations. The findings observed may be partly explained by Social Impact Theory (Latane, 1981), which states that individual behavior and attitudes can be influenced by proximity to group, connectedness to group, and size of group.
Implications for the Field:
When reporting individual and mean responses of college samples, it may be important to consider the context in which assessment took place. In the current study, it is unknown whether the online assessment or the group assessment most accurately represents true behavior and attitudes. Future researchers may wish to explore this effect further or attempt to determine which of the two assessments context better captures true drinking behavior and attitudes by collecting actual blood alcohol levels over the period assessed.

Reilly, D.W. & Wood, M.D. (2008). A randomized test of a small-group interactive social norms intervention. Journal of American College Health, 57(1), 53-60. return to list

Objective:
This study investigated whether a small-group interactive social norms correction could influence alcohol perception and behaviors above and beyond a non-interactive social norms education approach at decreased cost and labor levels.
Method:
The researchers used a randomized design to test an interactive form of small group norms correction with 502 first-year orientation students from a medium-sized New England public university during September and October of 2001. Participants (55% female and 87% white) were randomly assigned to either an intervention or a comparison condition. Students in the Standard Social Norms Correction (SSNC) received a standard health and safety presentation, which provided the 259 participants with prevention information focusing on alcohol and drug issues, sexual assault and violence, and health and personal safety. Participants completed a survey regarding alcohol use, marijuana use, and the number of past-year sex partners and were given campus-wide statistics on the topics, but not results of the survey. Participants also responded to questions regarding their perception of other students’ patterns on these items, including the perceived quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption.
Students in the interactive small group social norms correction (ISNC) received the standard health and safety presentation plus feedback and discussion of section-specific survey results. Student responses to the survey (243 students) were tallied during their class period and group leaders provided participants with their section-specific norms and encouraged discussion as to why observed discrepancies between actual and perceived alcohol use norms may exist.
Results:
Results indicated that the interactive social norms intervention for small group effectively reduced perceptions of drinking amounts. Both men and women substantially overestimated how much alcohol other students consumed. Sex differences were evident differences in both reported drinks per week and perceived drinks per week. Men estimated that other male students drank an average of 18.10 and women estimated other females drank an average of 13.16 drinks per week. Higher baseline perceptions were associated with higher perceptions at follow-up. Reductions in the number of reported drinks per week were observed at both the ISNC and SSNC conditions from pre- and post- tests.
The results support the general belief that misperceptions of alcohol use exist among the college student population and indicate that the small-group interactive social norms approach has a fairly substantial influence on student perceptions. However, the findings do not support an influence of interactive small group social norms correction on the measure of alcohol use behaviors. Participation in the ISNC vs. the SSNC condition did not result in lower levels of alcohol use.
Conclusion:
The findings suggest that the use of an interactive small group social norms approach to influence student misperceptions may be considered as a primer for preventive interventions. Although students in both conditions received some normative feedback, changes in misperceptions were observed only in the INSC condition, in which section leaders provided and interactively discussed survey results. The large reduction in misperceptions among this group supports this approach in correcting normative misperceptions. The findings do not support small group interactive social norms intervention as being effective as a stand-alone intervention to achieve behavioral change.
Implications for the field:
Multiple interventions at the individual, group, and environmental levels are needed to yield meaningful progress in reduction alcohol-related harm among college students.

Turner, J.C., Perkins, H. W., & Bauerle, J. (2008). Declining negative consequences related to alcohol misuse among students exposed to a social norms marketing intervention on a college campus. Journal of American College Health, 57 (1) 85-93. return to list

Objective:
This study assessed yearly exposure to alcohol interventions, alcohol consumption (estimated blood alcohol content [eBAC]), and self-reported alcohol-related negative consequences at a large public university as a result of students being increasingly exposed to a social norms intervention. The social norms campaign initially focused on correcting misperceptions about the quantity and frequency of consumption of alcohol and was expanded to include information about normative and protective behaviors.
Method:
The university initiated a social norms marketing campaign in the fall of 1999, initially targeting first-year students in an effort to reduce harm related to alcohol abuse. The program was then expanded to include all undergraduates and high risk groups in the fall of 2002. From spring 2001 through spring 2006, the university administered a Web-based survey to a random sample of 2,500 undergraduates from a four year university. The survey asked questions to evaluate trends in student alcohol misuse and included only those students who consumed alcohol within the past year in the analysis. Students were surveyed on ten possible negative outcomes they may have experienced as a result of drinking, the number of drinks usually consumed while drinking (eBAC), and recall of first year and campus-wide social norms messages and initiatives.
The 1999 social norms campaign targeted first year students through a monthly series of highly-visible posters in first-year residence halls. The posters accentuated the healthy normative behaviors that a majority of students reported on prior surveys and corrected existing overestimations about the quantity and frequency of heavy drinking among students. The 2002 campaign was a campus-wide general intervention that reached all undergraduate students through student media and a poster campaign. In addition to highlighting campus alcohol consumption norms, the campaign also provided normative information regarding protective behaviors.
Results:
The study assessed the degree to which alcohol-related negative consequences changed throughout the six years of the intervention. The proportion of students reporting no consequences increased substantially from 33% in 2001 to 51% in 2006, whereas the prevalence of multiple consequences declined from 44% to 26% in the same time frame. First year students exposed to the campus-wide social norms campaign reported a 24% reduction in the odds of having an eBAC greater than .08 the last time they partied. In each survey year (2001-2006), a majority of students (89-97%) recalled having seen the social norms posters targeting first-year students two or more times. For the campuswide campaign, recall rate ranged from 56-78% of undergraduates recalled seeing normative alcohol messages once or more from 2003 to 2006.
Conclusions:
The authors believe the evidence strongly supports that the social norms educational intervention succeeded in a high degree of audience penetration, initially among first-year students and later among the entire undergraduate population and high-risk target groups. Students who were reached by these messages reported lower eBACs and a significantly lower probability of experiencing alcohol-related consequences than did students who had no recall of the campus-wide campaign.
Implications for the Field:
Surveying students about their attitudes and behaviors as well as their recall of normative messages is important because it enhances awareness and facilitates the dissemination of relevant campus-specific information about social norms. Using a variety of marketing techniques, misperceptions about both actual campus behaviors (descriptive norms) and widely supported desirable behaviors (injunctive norms) can be corrected, thus encouraging safety and responsibility.

Objective:
This article examined the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS), which was designed to provide the first nationally representative picture of college student alcohol use and to describe the drinking behavior and negative consequences of this group. The article reviews what investigators have learned about college drinking and the implications for prevention: the need to focus on lower drinking thresholds, the harms produced at this level of drinking for the drinkers, the secondhand effects experienced by other students and neighborhood residents, the continuing extent of the problem, and the role of the college alcohol environment in promoting healthy drinking by students. In particular, the roles of campus culture, alcohol control policies, enforcement of policies, access, availability, pricing and marketing, and special promotions of alcohol are highlighted.
Method:
The CAS surveyed students at a nationally representative sample of four-year colleges in the United States four times between 1993 and 2001. More than 50,000 students at 120 colleges took part in the study. The inclusion of more than 100 colleges in the four national surveys allowed for an examination of the influence of student drinking on different factors on multiple levels, including the college setting, the adjoining community, and state and regional factors. The CAS used a two-stage sampling scheme, where colleges were selected proportionate to their enrollment size and a fixed number of students were randomly selected within colleges.
Researchers examined possible contextual, environmental, and policy determinants of student drinking. These included secondhand effects, negative consequences and alcohol-related problems, the influence of the college environment and community factors, the relationship between student drinking and policy, and prevention efforts.
Results:
In 1993, the first CAS study found that 44% of four-year college students participate in binge drinking. These results are consistent with the findings of the four administrations of the CAS survey from 1993-2001 and have been corroborated by other major national surveys, including the CORE Survey, the Monitoring the Future study, the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey, and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. A review of all of these surveys found consistent national rates of binge drinking of about 40%, despite varying sampling schemes and methodologies. Although the rate of binge drinking has remained the same, changes have been noted in the polarization of drinking behavior, with simultaneous increases in the number of abstainers and in the number of students who engage in frequent binge drinking.
         The CAS findings have shown that drinking to binge levels has a significant impact on students’ academic performance, social relationships, risk-taking behavior, and health. Over half of binge drinkers report having alcohol-related problems and negative consequences. Students who attended schools with high rates of binge drinking experienced a greater number of secondhand effects such as sleep disruption, verbal, physical, or sexual violence, and property damage. Features of the environment, such as residential setting, student affiliation, alcohol price and access, campus, local, and state alcohol policies, and campus prevailing drinking rates and demographic composition all impacted the initiation and perpetuation of binge drinking in college.
         The CAS data and supplemental surveys were also used to evaluate prevention efforts, including social norms marketing and the A Matter of Degree (AMOD) program, a program that was a demonstration initiative to reduce binge drinking and related harms among college students by changing campus and community environments. AMOD interventions targeted the easy accessibility, low price, and heavy marketing of alcohol prevalent in college communities.
         Use of the CAS data for evaluation of social norms marketing showed mixed results on its effectiveness. Administrators at approximately half (49%) of the colleges reported using social norms marketing as a prevention strategy to address student alcohol use. A CAS evaluation of colleges in which administrators reported that they used social norms marketing found that students attending these were more likely to report being exposed to social norms program messages and materials than were students at other campuses. However, no significant decreases in any measure of drinking were observed at colleges that employed a social norms approach compared with schools that did not, regardless of the length or intensity of the program. Conversely, a significant increase in any alcohol use was observed at these colleges. The CAS findings have been criticized for not directly examining the social marketing program quality and that administrator reports may not accurately reflect what was occurring on campus.
Conclusion:
The CAS research has raised awareness about the extent of college binge drinking and associated harms. The findings of the CAS point to the need for a broad approach that goes beyond individual students and targets alcohol environment at the college and the surrounding community. Prevention methods may be best adjusted to focus on the drinking behavior of the majority than to dramatically change the behavior of the heaviest drinker. This involves changing the way alcohol is made available, marketed, and served.
Implications for the field:
Understanding the patterns of drinking by different groups of students and in different settings can help researchers understand the factors that promote heavy drinking and identify potential intervention strategies to reduce alcohol consumption and, in turn, the harms that result from heavy consumption.



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