College Drinking:
Norms vs. Perceptions

COURTESY RICHARD RICE

Poster for a public health program aimed at reducing misperceptions about drinking at Virginia Commonwealth University

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Though well meaning perhaps, shocking headlines in the media and related scare tactics may inadvertently serve to further inflate students' misperception that their peers are largely out of control when it comes to alcohol. Our research tells quite a different story: College students consistently overestimate the extent to which their peers engage in high-risk drinking and, more importantly, this misperception correlates strongly with personal consumption. In point of fact, the norm among college students is to drink moderately if at all. And promoting this good news is an essential element of the health promotion strategy known as the social norms approach.

The powerful impact that norms have on both thought and behavior is a well established area of research in the social sciences. One question that previous research has largely neglected, however, is whether normative influences are driven by what an individual's peers actually do and think (i.e., the reality) or by what that individual believes (i.e., the perception). The social norms model proposes that many problem behaviors may be due largely to the desire or pressure to conform to erroneously perceived norms. Addressing these misperceptions has proven effective.

More than 50 studies have now documented college students' overestimates of peer drinking norms, and a number of these have also shown that misperceptions positively correlate with personal consumption.¹ Our recent study ￱ based on the largest national database of college students analyzed to date, including more than 76,000 students at 130 colleges and universities ￱ yielded several major findings that further confirm the underpinnings of the social norms approach.² First, a consistently large percentage of students nationwide (more than 70%) overestimated the quantity of alcohol consumed by their peers. Second, perception of campus drinking norm was by far the strongest predictor of personal consumption, stronger even than the actual campus drinking norm. Third, reduced levels of high-risk drinking and negative consequences were found among students attending the relatively few schools (i.e., less than 8% of the sample) where exposure to prevention information was associated with lower misperceptions of the campus drinking norm compared to students attending other schools.

Norm-based interventions use various strategies to consistently communicate the truth about a target population's actual norms of health, protection, and the avoidance of risk behaviors. With repeated exposure to a variety of positive, data-based messages, misperceptions that help sustain problem behavior are reduced, and a greater proportion of the population begins to act in accord with the more accurately perceived norms of health, protection, and safety. A campaign at Virginia Commonwealth University that included the poster (shown above) reduced misperceptions about high-risk alcohol use by half. An expected 8% increase in drinking rates as the school demographic switched from commuter to residential was essentially nullified. Although most of the positive results documented in the literature concern college student alcohol use, this approach has been employed effectively to address other issues as well, such as adolescent substance use, tax compliance, and seatbelt use.

In 2002, when the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) issued its Task Force Report on College Drinking, the NIAAA Panel on Prevention and Treatment noted that "several institutions that persistently communicated accurate norms have experienced reductions of up to 20% in high-risk drinking over a relatively short period of time."³ This is an impressive recommendation for institutions that may be grappling with the issue of student drinking.

Richard Rice, is the coordinator of education and information at the National Social Norms Resource Center at Northern Illinois University