Believe it or not: examining to the emergence of new drinking norms in college.

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of a six-month social norms marketing intervention designed to reduce alcohol use among students attending a small, private university. Analyses of baseline and follow-up data are presented as well as data dosage and saturation levels of the norm marketing campaign and on student reactions to the social norm marketing messages. Results indicate that little change in student alcohol use or perception of drinking norms occurred following the social norms intervention. A gender effect was noted in the analysis with female students experiencing declines in alcohol use. Barriers to program success particularly with regards to the perceived believability of the social norm messages are discussed.

Introduction

While there is evidence attesting to the success of social norm interventions in reducing alcohol consumption among college students (Hannes & Spear, 1996; Barnett, Far & Mauss, 1996; Peeler, Far & Miller, 2000; Johannessen, Collins, Mils-Novoa & Glider, 2000; Glider, Midyett, Mils-Novoa, Johannessen & Collins; 2001), some social norm theorists and practitioners have begun to turn their attention to the systematic examination of norm marketing interventions that have met with limited success. Recently, Clapp, Russell and DeJong (2001) reported on a failed social norm intervention. In their study of a semester-long social intervention, these researchers found that students did not understand the message and that the message and the image used in the media presentations were incongruent. Reflecting on failures such as this, Berkowitz (2001 a; 2001 b) has suggested that there could be a number of factors that account for social norm campaigns that experience limited or no success including confusing media images, unreliable message sources, and insufficient dosage. An assortment of contextual factors and conditions within a college or university such as an institution's unique culture can also potentially affect the success of social norm marketing campaigns. The importance of social context in creating new norms cannot be minimized for as Fine (2001, p162) asserts, "Norms are not separate from interaction ... [B]y conceiving norms as part of a locally constituted interaction order and as belonging to the cultural domain, the vibrancy and vitality of norms as they are lived can be appreciated."

Contextual dynamics within a college or university may produce among students extreme defensiveness and outright resistance to marketed norms. This suggests that the meaning and functions of alcohol use and related misperceptions among students (Berkowitz, 2001a) and additionally the meanings that students construct of norm marketing interventions must be appreciated. For instance, whether marketed norms are "believed" by students and are seen as credible may have a significant impact on the success of marketing moderate drinking norms. Werch and his colleagues (2000) note that the lack of believability and credibility of marketed social norm messages may have accounted for the negligible results they observed in their study of a social norm intervention.

The majority of the research on social norm marketing interventions has, understandably, focused on evaluative questions of outcome and impact (Haines & Spear, 1996; Barnett et al., 1996; Peeler et al., 2000; Werch et al., 2000; Johannessen et al., 2000; Glider et al., 2001). At present, however, there is a paucity of research examining college students' reactions to the messages being marketed to them through such interventions. The lack of data on how students respond to norm marketing campaigns is perhaps not surprising given that many social norm theorists and practitioners generally accept the proposition that students will experience some initial degree of skepticism to any effort designed to "correct" their misperception of college drinking (Perkins, 1997; Berkowitz, 1999). Understanding the empirical elements of this skepticism, however, may be of great importance in designing and redesigning any social norm marketing campaign, as well as understanding how conditions within broader context interact with norm marketing efforts. Indeed, the content and emergence of norms cannot be sufficiently understood in piecemeal fashion, but rather must be understood within a broader context of conditions and events that combine to shape norms (Mitchell, 1999). Thus, an analysis of student reaction to social norm marketing may offer valuable insight into the refinement of social norm marketing interventions.

This paper examines the impact of a six-month social norm marketing campaign at a small, private liberal arts school that enrolls nearly 4000 undergraduate students. The intervention being conducted at this university is part of a three-year grant funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Baseline and follow-up data have been collected from students at the intervention site. For this paper, results from the comparison of first year and follow-up data are presented along with data on the degree of student believability of the social norm messages being marketed. This paper concludes with a discussion of student reactions to norm marketing strategies and what these reactions mean for the development and implementation of future efforts to market new norms.

METHOD

Data for this study were collected from 871 randomly selected undergraduate students attending this university. Baseline data were collected from a sample of 432 students. Follow-up data from 439 students who had been exposed to a seven-month long social norm marketing intervention were also collected. For each group, a cluster sampling design was used to select students. First, a list of all undergraduate classes in the winter quarter was obtained from the university registrar's office and a random sample of classes was chosen. For both the baseline and follow-up data, a total of 25 classes were selected for inclusion in the sample. The sample characteristics for each of the groups represent a close match to the population parameters of the university as a whole. Overall, there were few differences in sample characteristics over the two time periods.

The Core Alcohol and Drug Survey was used to collect the majority of data for this study. In addition to the Core Survey, students in the follow-up year received a supplemental questionnaire that included items related to a student's perception of drinking by various groups on campus as well as an overall estimate of the percentage of students who drink five or more drinks in a sitting. Additionally, this questionnaire included items related to the frequency with which students encountered social norm messages at various locations around the university and items related to the degree to which students believed or found credible the statistics that were used to promote the moderate drinking norms. Two questions were used to construct the believability scale. Using a Likert scale, each question asked students to indicate the credibility of the following statistics during the baseline year and reported during the social norm marketing intervention: "Most (school name) students, 64 percent, drink 0-5 drinks at a time" and "Most (school name) students, 66 percent, drink alcohol one per week or less." The inter-item correlation between these two questions was .67. Beginning in September 1999, a three-year social norm marketing intervention was implemented at the university. The Montana Model was used as a methodological framework to guide the development and implementation of this intervention (Linkenbach, 1999). This model consist of seven-stage process including planning and advocacy, collection of baseline data, message development, marketing plan, pilot testing of materials, implementation of social norm campaign, and evaluation. During the first year of the social norm marketing implementation, project staff worked with students, faculty and administrators to identify stakeholder groups who would participate in the development and implementation of the social norm selling campaign. In addition to these planning efforts, baseline date were collected using the Core Survey outlined above and analyzed. The following messages were selected for inclusion in the social norm marketing campaign: "Most (school name) students, 64 percent, drink 0-5 drinks at a time;" "Most (school name) students, 66 percent, drink alcohol once per week or less;" and, "Most (school name) students, 89 percent, do not damage property as a result of alcohol." Once the social norm messages were selected, the project staff along with stakeholder groups consisting of students and other university staff prepared various designs for posters as well as developed other marketing items that would be used in the campaign. Finally, an overall marketing plan for dissemination of the messages throughout the campus was established.

After one year of planning and preparation, the social norm marketing campaign was officially set into motion in the fall of 2000. Over the next several months, various marketing strategies were employed to disseminate the normative messages including large posters consisting of specific university images and students as well as decals, rubber magnets, pens, flyers, visors, and lanyards all of which contained the selected messages pertaining to alcohol use on campus. In addition to these activities, members of the project staff gave presentations to various student groups on campus including Greeks and athletes and made other public presentations at the university. Also, student stakeholders conducted "prize patrols" by circulating throughout the campus asking students if they knew the social norm messages and who were rewarded with movie passes and coffee vouchers for giving the correct answer. Finally, advertisements were taken out in the school newspaper and occasional editorials submitted by project staff and student stakeholders were printed about the social norm intervention.

RESULTS

Since the adoption of new norms is often associated with behavior that is considered to be salient and widespread (Home, 2001), it is important to first assess the degree to which this campus was saturated with the norm marketing materials. Enacting new norms through norm marketing strategies may greatly depend on the extent to which consumers are exposed to information on reported drinking behavior. Sufficient dosage levels must be achieved in order for social norms campaigns to be effective in transforming the campus norm (Berkowitz, 2001a). Analysis of the data indicates that there was widespread exposure to the normative messages. Nearly 85 percent of the students report having seen a social norm message on alcohol use at least once or twice per week throughout the seven-month intervention period. Almost half of these students indicated that they saw social messages on a daily basis. As this data suggests, the intervention was highly successful in exposing students to messages that marketed moderate campus alcohol use norms.

Despite this success with implementation, comparison date between the baseline and follow-up years indicated little change in the perceived campus drinking norm or in reported alcohol use by students after the intervention. Results from T-test comparisons between pre-test and post-test data suggest that the intensive six-month long social norm intervention did not produce campus-wide changes in perceived norms or in drinking behavior. Table one indicates that none of the alcohol use variables, nor the variable pertaining to the perceived campus drinking norm, achieved statistical significance.

While the social norm marketing intervention did not produce any significant overall changes in actual or perceived alcohol use, there was a gender effect observed in the data. Although males did not experience any significant change after the norm marketing intervention, a statistically significant difference was observed in women. T-tests conducted on female respondents revealed significant differences in 30-day use of alcohol T = (2.9 p,<.003) and reported alcohol use in the previous year (T =2.3, P.<.02). Women reported drinking less frequently following the norm marketing campaign. No change however occurred in the quantity of alcohol women consumed when they did drink. Interestingly, these changes in the frequency of women's use occurred without significant corresponding reductions in their perceptions of drinking norm on campus.

That overall rates of alcohol use and perceptions of norms appear unchanged after six months is, perhaps not surprising. Most individuals working with social norm marketing interventions suggest that norm-changing efforts need to be extensive and long term in order to convince students that a less permissive norm exists for alcohol consumption. Such a view is consistent with scholars who posit a cascading or "tipping point" effect in the process of norm changes (McAdams, 1997; Cooter, 1996). According to Ellikson (2001, p.51) "an upstart norm starts slowly, gains momentum, and culminates in a triumphant rush." However, the above findings do raise questions about the viability of social norm marketing strategies as a methodology of transforming campus drinking norms, and draws attention to the possible barriers to normative change such interventions might experience.

The explanation for the above findings may lie in the fact that most students reacted negatively to the social norms messages. Less than 35 percent of the students indicated that they reacted favorably to the normative messages and only 20 percent reported that they were motivated by the social norm messages to discuss them with other students. Thus, students did not favor the presence of the messages on campus, nor did the messages induce students to engage in conversation about drinking norms. Additionally, only 12 percent of the students reported that the marketed norms altered their perception of student use and less 2 percent thought that the marketed norms affected their own use patterns. These exceedingly low rates of engagement with the marketed norms may stem from the fact that most students simply did not believe them. Less than 45 percent of the students reported that they "believe" or "tend to believe" the statistics on alcohol use being sold to them through the social norms marketing intervention. However, the variance in believability rates is not equally distributed. For instance, women were somewhat more likely to have found the messages credible and were accurate reflections of the student culture than were males. Also, older students and those with higher grade point averages tended to believe in the accuracy of the marketed norms than younger students with lower academic performance. These bivariate differences suggest that individual student characteristics might account for the lack of believability of the marketed norms and the less than substantial impact of the social norm marketing intervention.

Table 2 presents the results from a multiple regression analysis and the corresponding standardized regression coefficients suggesting that believability of the marketed norms is associated with a number of factors. Although bivariate analysis suggested that gender and grade point average affect the degree of believability of marketed norms, these variables did not significantly contribute to the overall variance in the regression model. The student's age is the only demographic that achieves statistical significance. Older students indicate that they are somewhat more accepting of the marketed social norms than younger students. This may suggest that older students, who are more likely to live off-campus, may no longer be exposed to the perceived heavy drinking norms that characterize younger, on-campus students.

Not surprisingly, the amount of alcohol consumed by a student as well as his/her frequency of heavy drinking affect the degree to which the marketed social norms were seen as credible. The more that students use alcohol and particularly, if that use is heavy, the less likely they were to believe to marketed social norms messages regarding the entire campus. For these students, the marketed norms did not seem to resonate with the own personal experiences, making it difficult for them to accept that "most students" do not drink as they do. As might be predicted by the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), disbelieving the marketed message allows heavy drinking students to continue their level of drinking without experiencing a sense of conflict that they are deviating from the prevailing norm.

Perhaps most interesting about the above analysis is that while age and student drinking behavior absorbs a portion of the variance in believability of the marketed norms, the greatest amount of variance, approximately 19 percent is explained by the perception variables. Students who continue to believe that the majority of other students are heavy drinkers were significantly less persuaded by the marketed social norms message that the majority of students are more moderate drinkers. Consistent with social norm theory, the perception that the majority of students are heavy drinkers is the strongest predictor of believability in regression model. While the perception of heavy drinking among students significantly affects believability, the perception of the drinking behavior of fraternity members likewise is important in explaining student reaction to the marketed social norms messages. The more that students perceive that fraternity members drink heavily at parties, the less likely they believe the messages marketed through the norm selling campaign. No other perceptions of alcohol use among specific groups on campus including athletes, sororities, male or females, or on-campus students, had unique effects on student believability of the social norms messages.

DISCUSSION

This study lends partial support for social norm marketing. The norm marketing efforts did appear to produce some change on drinking behaviors, at least among women. Females in the follow-up year reported lower rates of alcohol use than those in the baseline year. No change was reported in the rate of heavy alcohol use for either males or females. In fact, contrary to the theory underlying the social norms marketing model, the significant reductions in alcohol use reported by females occurred independently of any change in their perception of drinking norm on campus. The fact that women experienced significant reductions in the frequency of alcohol use without altering their perceptions of the campus drinking norm may suggest that women base their perceptions of use not on other women, but on men. Such an interpretation is supported by the ethnographic research conducted by Williams (2000) who found that the college women she studied typically used alcohol as a way of "hooking up" with men. In that study, women typically used alcohol as a strategy to develop and maintain romantic relationships with men, and thus, may attend more to male drinking norms than the norms and practices of other women.

The findings presented in this study also raise important questions about the believability of the social norms campaign. The fact that most students did not believe the social norms campaign has important implications for future prevention efforts and for a more general understanding of the emergence of norms through marketing strategies. Interpreting the results of this study requires some understanding of why students might be rejecting the social norms information and the meaning students give to the norm selling campaign. Awareness of the cultural context of any specific college campus is critical in understanding how students perceive norm-selling campaigns. Understanding norms and their emergence in relation to the broader context within which attempted change efforts occur will help illuminate cases where social norm efforts are successful and those where they are not.

As the above results indicate, most students were skeptical of the marketed social norms information. This rejection, however, was not universal but rather, was highly correlated with the variables of age, alcohol use and the perception of heavy use on campus and the amount of alcohol use by fraternities. These correlations may suggest that there are certain contextual barriers to enacting new norms (Fine, 2001). Since patterns of drinking vary across college campuses (Wechsler, Molnar & Davenport, 1999), norm-setting strategies must account for these unique campus cultures. As Wechsler and his colleagues note, it is not possible to design a "one size fits all" approach to prevention because on some campuses, heavy drinking, while perhaps not the norm, is highly visible and may continue to be assumed to be the norm despite evidence to the contrary. This may be complicated by the fact the some groups who are considered to be norm-setting in their drinking are also highly visible members of the campus community.

This appears to be the case at the university examined in this study. Believability of the social norms marketing intervention is correlated with perceptions of heavy drinking on campus as well as perceptions of fraternity drinking. This is not surprising. Like other small, private, liberal arts college, this university is dominated by the presence of fraternities. The major fraternities line the inner walkways of the university and its members have a dominating presence in the university culture. Fraternities are the most visible group on campus, as are their parties or at least stories of their parties.

This dominance of fraternities poses some significant challenges for social norms marketing strategies within this university. At the present time, fraternities are under the microscope by the administration at this university and are seen as the root of the campus drinking problems. This has alienated fraternity members and has produced skepticism towards the social norm marketing intervention. Many of these students believe, incorrectly, that the norm marketing campaign is a public relation's ploy hatched by administrators to clean up the university's somewhat tarnished image as a "party school" instead of an independent, federally-funded scientific investigation. Already highly critical of the administration, many fraternity members and their supporters have reacted negatively to the norm marketing campaign for its presumed linkage to the administration's image-making efforts to increase enrollments. As many students see it, the norm marketing campaign is designed to put parents at ease with regard to the extent of alcohol use on campus. By associating the campaign with an administration that they see as trying to exercise increased control over them, students have "framed" (Goffman, 1974) the marketed norms campaign in negative terms that restricts most from accepting the information as legitimate. A colleague at another university conducting a similar social norm marketing campaign pointed to this same tendency on her campus. As she commented, "Our administration has embarked on a very intense public relations effort to change our school's public image--students know this and sometimes expect that we are "tools" of the administration in this regard" (Far, 2001).

Resistance to social norm messages among these students becomes as assertion of independence against the perception of unjust coercion (Home, 2001). How consumers of alcohol and drug reduction interventions ultimately define these programs has significant implications for their success (Gustfield, 1996; Schevalier, 2000; Granfield, 1992). The pre-existing social context and interactional dynamics within an environment has a significant effect not only on use patterns but on the emergence of alternative use norms as well, and on how treatments and interventions are interpreted (Granfield and Cloud, 1999; 2001; Cloud and Granfield, 2001). Indeed, as Berkowitz (2001a) has pointed out, messages that have a real or assumed disreputable sources may act as a barrier to the success of positive social norming outcomes.

Combating the tendency to disbelieve the actual campus norm is critical to the success of this and any social norms marketing intervention. The intervention described in this study is presently in its final year of funding. Project staff are exploring ways to increase the plausibility level of the data by directly confronting the campus myths that have emerged regarding the project, specifically that the campaign is a public relations ploy of the university to look better to parents and the press. Staff members have also begun to work more closely with fraternities on campus to increase their level of support for the program by informing then that the intervention is a research grant that is separate from the university administration. The emphasis here is to inform fraternities as well as the general student body that this is a research project that is aimed at reducing harms associated with the use of alcohol as opposed to further sanctioning of students, especially fraternities, and placing additional restrictions on student life. Data that will be collected in 2002 will assess the extent to which these "myths" about the campaign have eroded and the believability of the marketed norms has increased.

The results of this present study suggest that while norm marketing interventions can be effective, even in the short term for some subpopulations, theorists and practitioners must comprehend the prevailing social context within colleges that serve to either inhibit or promote successful outcomes. Like the fact that colleges have differing rates of alcohol use and misuse, colleges are also likely to have different cultural and interactional contexts that mediate the receptivity of the social norms messages. Some campuses, like the one examined in this study, may possess attributes that produce higher levels of disbelief and messages rejection than other campuses. As Fine (2001, p. 148) reminds us, "people comprehend things in context." In the case of norm marketing interventions, students may attribute meanings to such strategies that encourage outright rejections of the marketed norms. The marketing of moderate drinking norms through efforts such as the one described in this study involves more than simply disseminating data on actual rates of alcohol use. Understanding the mechanisms of skepticism and how meanings of such interventions are actively constructed and negotiated by students will provide insight for social norm marketing practitioners who are interested in tailoring interventions to fit the unique interactional contexts within different campuse environments.

Future efforts in social norm marketing should incorporate some systematic assessment of how students are reacting to the campaign and the factors that produce these reactions. Combining quantitative measures of believability, message receptivity, and credibility of social norm interventions along with qualitative approaches that explore student reactions to these campaigns will assist in identifying and responding to the barriers that may impede successful outcomes. For instance, are there any particular pockets of resistance to the marketed norm and what is the basis of this resistance? Are there a sufficient number of "norm entrepreneures" and change agents who possess the legitimacy to carry the marketed messages into the campus culture? What are the various legitimate sources of information dissemination that will most likely produce consensus on actual drinking norms? What, if any, are the instrumental, self-interested reasons why groups might accept or reject the marketed norms and can these differing self-interested pursuits be incorporated into the norm marketing campaign? What are the perceived costs and rewards associated with holding onto or jettisoning false norms? Finally, what role does the believability and credibility of normative messages play in effective interventions? These are just a few of the contextual-based questions that might be incorporated into a social norm marketing implementation plan and evaluation.

Table 1. T-test comparisons between baseline and follow-up years on
selected variables

Variable                            T-Value   P

Alcohol use in previous year        1.63      .24
Number of drinks per week           .517      .35
Heavy drinking in past two weeks    1.01      .31
Perception of student alcohol use   1.21      .08

Table 2: OLS Regression of Believability of Social Norms Messages
on Selected Independent Variables

                                               Believability of
Independent Variable                             Social Norms

Age                                                 .110 **
Average individual consumption                     -.135 *
Five of more drinks per sitting in two weeks       -.162 **
Perception of drinking by fraternities             -.188 ***
Perception of heavy drinking on campus             -.250 ***

R2                                                  .28
Number of cases                                     387

* p<05, ** p<01, *** p<.001

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Author Note

Thanks to Alan Berkowitz and Jeanne Far for their assistance in developing this paper.

One reviewer suggested that, since the project is not yet complete, presentation of results to date might be somewhat premature. However, this reviewer also points out that the current results and discussion of this social norm project warrants attention. The purpose of this article is to conduct an empirical study of student reaction to a social norm effort so as to identify factors associated with believability and consider approaches consistent with social norms marketing that seek to increase student believability. It is possible that the increased efficacy of the project as well as variations in believability will become apparent in the third wave of data. These data will be reported at a later date.

JADE's website: www.unomaha.edu/~healthed/JADE.html

Robert Granfield, Send all correspondence to:

Robert Granfield

Department of Sociology 

University of Denver 

Denver, CO

e-mail [e-mail]