Do my peers approve? Interest in injunctive norms feedback delivered online to college student drinkers

Whose Approval Matters Most? Examining Discrepancies in Self- and Other- Perceptions of Drinking

BACKGROUND

Research demonstrates that perceptions of others' attitudes toward drinking behaviors (injunctive norms) are strong predictors of alcohol consumption and problems. Personalized normative feedback (PNF) aims to reduce the discrepancy between one's perception of others' attitudes toward drinking and others' actual attitudes toward drinking. An implicit assumption of PNF is that self and (perceived) other attitudes toward drinking are aligned (thus, shifting one's perceptions of others' attitudes shifts one's own attitudes). However, there is minimal research on the extent to which alignment (or discrepancy) in self-other attitudes toward drinking is associated with alcohol-related outcomes.

METHODS

College students (N = 1,494; Mage = 20.11, 61.0% female, 66.4% White) who endorsed past-month heavy episodic drinking reported injunctive norms toward drinking on weekends, drinking daily, drinking to black out, and drinking and driving. Participants reported their perceptions of attitudes toward these drinking behaviors for three reference groups: close friends, typical university-affiliated peers, and parents. Outcomes included weekly drinking, alcohol problems, and alcohol-related risk.

RESULTS

Response surface analyses indicated that alignment in approval (versus alignment in disapproval) of drinking demonstrated a linear association with alcohol-related outcomes. Discrepancies in self-peer and self-parent attitudes were associated with alcohol-related outcomes and one's own attitudes (versus one's ratings of others' attitudes) of drinking were more strongly associated with outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide evidence of how self-other discrepancies in attitudes toward drinking are associated with alcohol-related outcomes. Future work is needed to test whether self-other discrepancies in attitudes toward drinking impacts response to norms-based interventions.

Injunctive Norms and Driving Under the Influence and Riding With an Impaired Driver Among Young Adults in Washington State

PURPOSE

Alcohol- and cannabis-impaired driving behaviors remain a public health concern especially among young adults (i.e., ages 18-25). Limited updates to prevention efforts for these behaviors may be due, in part, to limited understanding of malleable psychosocial predictors. The current study assessed associations between perceived injunctive norms (i.e., acceptability) of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI-A) and cannabis (DUI-C), and riding with a driver under the influence of alcohol (RWI-A) and cannabis (RWI-C) in Washington State young adults.

METHODS

Participants included 1,941 young adults from the 2019 cohort of the Washington Young Adult Health Survey. Weighted logistic regressions assessed the associations between peer injunctive norms and impaired driving-related behaviors.

RESULTS

A weighted total of 11.5% reported DUI-A, 12.4% DUI-C, 10.9% RWI-A, and 20.9% RWI-C at least once in the past 30 days. Overlap between the outcomes was observed, indicating some young adults had engaged in multiple impaired driving-related behaviors. After controlling for substance use frequency, weighted logistic regressions indicated more positive perceived injunctive norms were associated with nearly 2 ½ times higher odds of DUI-A, 8 times higher odds of DUI-C, 4 times higher odds of RWI-A and six and a half times higher odds of RWI-C.

DISCUSSION

Results increase the understanding of how injunctive norms-a potentially malleable psychosocial factor-are associated with four impaired driving-related outcomes. Prevention programs that focus on assessing and addressing the norms of these outcomes individually and collectively, such as normative feedback interventions and media campaigns, may be helpful in reducing these behaviors.

Injunctive and descriptive normative feedback for college drinking prevention: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

OBJECTIVE

Single-component personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions and multicomponent personalized feedback interventions (PFI) have been shown to reduce alcohol consumption among college students. The present study compared the efficacy of PNF interventions targeting descriptive norms alone (descriptive PNF), injunctive norms alone (injunctive PNF), or their combination (combined PNF), against a multicomponent PFI and an attention control condition.

METHOD

Undergraduates (N = 1,137) across two universities who reported a minimum of one past-month episode of heavy episodic drinking (i.e., 4 +/5 + drinks on a single occasion for females/males) completed assessments at baseline and 3, 6, and 12 months postintervention.

RESULTS

Relative to the attention control, participants in each of the four intervention conditions showed greater reductions in perceived descriptive/injunctive norms, total drinks per week, and alcohol-related consequences. Peak estimated blood alcohol concentration was also reduced in the injunctive PNF, combined PNF, and multicomponent PFI conditions, with the latter two conditions showing an advantage for duration of effects. The multicomponent PFI condition also evidenced greater reductions than the injunctive PNF in descriptive norms at 3-month and injunctive norms at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. No other group comparisons on any outcome were significant.

CONCLUSIONS

Each intervention has merit for use in college student harm reduction efforts. Single-component or combined PNF could be considered a potential starting point, as PNF is less burdensome than a multicomponent PFI when considering ease and length of delivery. Results can inform optimization of norms-based interventions and guide recommendations on efficacious components for reducing alcohol use and harms on college campuses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Social and Outcome Expectancies on Hazardous Drinking among Chinese University Students: The Mediating Role of Drinking Motivations

Background and Objectives: Based on the theory of reasoned action, the present study investigated the relative effects of drinking outcome expectancies and parental norms, as well as the mediating effect of drinking motivations, on hazardous drinking in Chinese university students. Method: A sample of Chinese university students in Hong Kong and Macao (N = 973, M = 19.82, SD = 1.57, 48.9% males), who reported drinking in the past 3 months, voluntarily completed an anonymous questionnaire. Path analysis was used to test the effects of the variables on hazardous drinking. Results: All the psychosocial variables showed positive correlations with hazardous drinking. In the path model, controlling for sex, parental norms had both direct and indirect effects on hazardous drinking through social and enhancement motivations. Courage had the strongest indirect effect on drinking behavior through social, enhancement, and coping motivations, whereas the relationship between tension reduction and hazardous drinking was mediated by enhancement and coping motivations. Sociality and sexuality only had indirect effect through social and coping motivations respectively. Negative outcome expectancies had no direct nor indirect effects on hazardous drinking. Conclusions: Perceived approval from parents and positive alcohol outcome expectancies may enhance individuals' tendency to engage in hazardous drinking by increasing their motivation to drink to be social, for enjoyment, and to cope with problems. Parents should explicitly show their disapproval of their children's drinking, and education efforts should focus on decreasing positive outcome expectancies and associated motivations for drinking among Chinese university students.

Delivering normative feedback to heavy drinking college students via text messaging: A pilot feasibility study

Correcting misperceptions in drinking norms is an established method of reducing college student drinking; however, delivery of accurate norms has typically been limited to a single dose within the confines of an alcohol intervention. The present study tests the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of using text messages to promote pro-moderation descriptive and injunctive norms. Following a baseline survey, 68 heavy drinking college students were randomly assigned to receive 28 daily messages with either accurate norms information (experimental group, n=34) or fun facts (control group, n=34). Participants rated each message on a 5-point scale of interest, and at the end of the 28days completed a follow-up assessment of normative perceptions and drinking behavior. The study protocol was feasible: 87% of invited students completed the screener, 64% of eligible students completed the consent form, and 93% agreed to participate. All messages were delivered and 98% were rated. Regarding acceptability, the mean interest rating for the alcohol-related text messages was 2.84 (SD=1.30), and no participants withdrew from the study. Although between-group differences were not observed at follow-up, participants in the experimental group showed significant reductions between baseline and follow-up on peak drinks, frequency of heavy episodic drinking (HED), negative consequences, and injunctive norms (ps<0.01). Results lay the groundwork for development of a text-based prevention strategy for use in college settings.

Testing competing models of injunctive and descriptive norms for proximal and distal reference groups on alcohol attitudes and behavior

INTRODUCTION

Injunctive norms represent perceptions regarding the extent that others approve of a behavior, whereas descriptive norms represent perceptions of the extent that others engage in a behavior. This study evaluated competing path models, varying in the representation of injunctive and descriptive norm constructs, to forecast alcohol attitudes and use.

METHODS

College students (N=326) answered questions about their normative perceptions regarding three relevant reference groups (typical students, friends, and parents) in the form of alcohol injunctive and descriptive norms. Personal alcohol attitudes (approval) and usage were assessed one month later.

RESULTS

The path analysis model arranged by injunctive versus descriptive found that injunctive norms explained attitudes, but descriptive norms contributed to behavior. In the path analysis model of constructs organized by reference groups, friend and parent norms uniquely contributed to attitudes, but typical student, friend, and parental norms contributed to use. Finally, the comprehensive model based on each reference group combination with injunctive and descriptive norms (e.g., typical student injunctive) determined that friend injunctive norms and parent injunctive norms uniquely forecasted alcohol attitudes, whereas typical student injunctive norms, typical student descriptive norms, and friend descriptive norms forecasted behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

A novel contribution of the study is the scrutiny of competing models of alcohol norms using the same multifaceted measures. Disparate implications emerge about the role of subjective norms as a function of the approach to compute the constructs. The most nuanced insights were obtained in the final comprehensive model involving the representation of norms at the finest level of specificity.