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Research - Case Studies

The Social Norms approach has been used most notably to reduce heavy episodic alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm among college students. Among the institutions reporting significant reductions include Northern Illinois University (Haines and Spear, 1996; Haines, 1996; Haines and Barker, 2003), the University of Arizona (Johannessen et al., 1999; Glider et al., 2001; Johannessen and Glider, 2003) Western Washington University (Fabiano, 2003), and Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Perkins and Craig, 2002, 2003).

These campus-wide interventions, implemented at large schools (Haines and Barker, 2003; Johannessen et al., 1999; Fabiano, 2003; Foss, 2004) and small (Perkins and Craig, 2003), and at demographically diverse institutions throughout the country, reported reductions across various demographic categories, as well as among both moderate and problematic drinkers.

There have also been studies outside of the USA finding pervasive misperceptions of alcohol and drug use norms among university students. Studies were conducted in New Zealand, Scotland, Canada, and five Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, and Peru) (McAlaney, Bewick, & Hughes, 2010; Kypri and Langley, 2003; McAlaney & McMahon, 2007; Perkins, 2007; Arbour-Nicitopoulos et al., 2010; Bustamante et al., 2009).

In addition, a number of effective social norms interventions have targeted specific sub-populations (e.g., first-year students, fraternity and sorority members, and athletes) within the campus environment. Some of these have employed media campaigns (Berkley-Patton, et al., 2003; Mattern & Neighbors, 2004), peer-based programming efforts (Cimini et al., 2002), group feedback using wireless keypads (LaBrie, Hummer, Grant, & Lac, 2010), computer-delivered normative feedback (Lewis & Neighbors, 2007; Neighbors, Larimer, & Lewis, 2004); whereas others have used a workshop or counseling format to reduce misperceptions and reduce problematic drinking (Barnett et al., 1996; Berkowitz and Perkins, 1987; Borsari and Carey, 2000; Steffian, 1999) or a combination of these strategies (Perkins & Craig, 2006). Successful experiments using the social norms approach have also been conducted with students identified as heavy drinkers (Agostinelli et al., 1995; Collins et al., 2002; Cunningham et al., 2001; Schroeder et al., 1998; Doumas, McKinley, & Book, 2009; Neighbors et al, 2004.) as well as those living in small residential groupings (Schroeder et al., 1998).

Interestingly, the social norms approach has also been effective in reducing the prevalence of smoking (Hancock et al., 2002) and in delaying the onset of cigarette use among college students (Hancock and Henry, 2003), as well as in reducing alcohol and cigarette use among adolescents (Hansen and Graham, 1991; Linkenbach and Perkins, 2003) and high school students (Haines et al., 2003).


References

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Arbour-Nicitopoulos, K.P., Kwan, M.Y.W., Lowe, D., Taman, S. & Faulkner, G.E.J. Social norms of alcohol, smoking, and marijuana use with a Canandian univeristy setting. Journal of American College Health, 59(3):191-196, 2010.

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