April 7-9, 2022 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Abstract: Using Injunctive Norms to Support College Students Who Choose Not to Drink Alcohol either Occasionally or At All
Positive injunctive norms tell people that they have the approval of a majority of others to engage in a particular behavior, while descriptive norms provide information about the prevalence of the behavior (Cialdini et al., 1990). Injunctive norms are very powerful yet understudied. A meta-analysis by Rhodes and colleagues (2021) found that injunctive norm manipulations were more effective at changing behavior than were descriptive norms manipulations. Highlighting injunctive norm approval in a social norms campaign might be especially helpful by showing normative levels of support for a group who practice positive deviance by violating the norms of society by doing something positive which is non-normative. Those who choose not to drink alcohol at all when partying or socializing on college campuses can be seen as positive deviants as nationally 30.5% of those 18-25 reported that they chose not to drink alcohol in the past year thus do not reaching the descriptive norm minimum level of 51% (SAMHSA, 2020). The percentage of students who report that they choose not to drink occasionally when partying or socializing is unknown currently. Also unknown is the injunctive norm level of approval of choosing not to drink either at all or occasionally. Therefore, this study explores actual and perceived descriptive and injunctive norms for choosing not to drink alcohol either at all or occasionally when partying or socializing. This study was part of a formative analysis for a Social Norms Approach (SNA; Berkowitz, 1997; Perkins, 1997; 2003; Perkins & Berkowitz, 1986) campaign to support students who choose not to drink at all, but also to convey peer approval to those who choose not to drink occasionally provided that the results of the formative analysis pretest actually reach normative levels and those perceptions of the norms are significantly below the actual norms. Method Following IRB approval, a web-based survey was conducted in July, 2021 with a stratified random sample of undergraduates at a large Midwestern university enrolled for the Fall, 2021 semester (n = 1,138). Data were weighted based on the demographics of the whole undergraduate population. Questions asked are reported in Table 1. Results Please see Table 1 for all results Discussion As noted above, the results of the formative analysis pretest must actually reach normative levels for all behaviors and approvals to be used in messages for a SNA campaign. Only the behavior of choosing not to drink at all is below 51%. Over 93% chose not to drink occasionally, and over 95% approve of other students choosing not to drink when partying or socializing either at all or occasionally. The perceptions of the norms are significantly below the actual norms for these three behaviors/approvals with gaps ranging from 35% to 55%. This indicates that descriptive and injunctive norms for choosing not to drink occasionally and injunctive norms for choosing not to drink at all meet the standards for a SNA campaign to show normative levels of support for those who choose not to drink alcohol when partying or socializing.