The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians / Edition 1

by H. Wesley Perkins

Overview

The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse offers educators, counselors, and clinicians a handbook for understanding and implementing a new and highly successful alternative to traditional methods for preventing substance abuse among young people. The proven "social norms" approach outlined in this book identifies young people's dramatic misperceptions about their peer norms and promotes accurate public reporting of actual positive norms that exist in all student populations. The contributors to this important book are the originators, pioneers, and active proponents of this new approach. Many of them have successfully applied the social norms approach in secondary and higher education settings and as a result have promoted healthier lifestyles among adolescents and young adults across the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780787964597
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	02/24/2003
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	7.22(w) x 9.65(h) x 1.15(d)

About the Author

H. Wesley Perkins, is one of the originators and foremost leaders of the social norms approach to substance abuse prevention and health promotion. Currently he is professor of sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Perkins is the author of dozens of journal articles, is a frequent speaker and consultant for educators and health professionals working with youth and young adults, and has been honored with several national awards for his work in preventing alcohol and drug abuse in colleges and universities.

Read an Excerpt

The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse

A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians

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John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 0-7879-6459-X

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Chapter One

THE EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL NORMS APPROACH TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE PREVENTION

H. Wesley Perkins, Ph.D.

The growth in the prevention field of what has now become known as the "social norms approach" has been a long time coming. It began almost twenty years ago with a few surprising research findings about social norms and their misperceptions (Perkins and Berkowitz, 1986) followed by proposals for practical application of these findings (Berkowitz and Perkins, 1987) and a comprehensive theoretical model of the prevention approach (Perkins, 1991, 1997). The strategy suggested by this perspective remained on the margins of prevention literature and practice, however, for quite some time thereafter. Nevertheless, interest grew and a few brave prevention workers branched out to embrace it in the years following these publications. Today, although the approach is by no means dominant in the health promotion field, nor in the programs of primary, secondary, or postsecondary education, it has become a popular topic that prevention specialists are turning to with greater frequency as a positive alternative to traditional methods.

Some administrators, health workers, and educators have reluctantly begun to acknowledge the potential; others have experienced a dramatic conversion to the social normsperspective, with renewed excitement and zeal for potential change. Some people in prevention work have been attracted by the intriguing logic of the approach itself, but much more of the growing popularity has been driven by two related phenomena. First, the failed efforts or lack of improvement using traditional strategies in most youth and young adult target populations has led professionals to look for new methods out of sheer frustration with the stagnant situation. Second, the field of health and safety promotion is recognizing the need to go beyond simply restating problem behaviors or positing what are believed to be good prevention practices, to documenting effective prevention results. Indeed, there is growing recognition that we need to know what works and then move in those directions. The prevention field is finally becoming more serious in demanding science-based evaluation. This demand is making evident the pervasive lack of impact from traditional strategies and the impressive emerging data on reduction in substance abuse and related problem behaviors that has been achieved through social norms strategies.

Looking Back: Transitions in the Prevention Field

The historical trajectory of substance abuse prevention work with adolescents and young adults in recent decades is instructive for understanding current interest in the social norms approach. Traditionally, prevention concentrated on reactive strategies, that is, those waiting for the problem to appear before taking action; they are an attempt to fix something once it is broken. This work has focused on ways to rehabilitate problem users and addicts, or contain their problem behaviors. In secondary schools and colleges, this usually means getting the individual into a counseling program, requiring a workshop on the effects of drugs and risks of abuse, or a punishment such as required community service. If serious rules are broken or the substance abusing individual is a threat to others, we suspend him or her. Some of these interventions may be ultimately necessary at one level to restrain and hopefully change the high-risk individual and his or her destructive behavior. These strategies are labor-intensive and expensive, however, and are mostly "containment" measures for these problem youths. They do not reduce the overall prevalence of the problem among high-risk youth; nor do they reduce the substance abuse that occurs in the larger population of youths who would not necessarily be categorized as addicts or persistent problem users.

The prevention field has moved well beyond that limited approach, of course, toward strategies that for several years now have been called "proactive." These strategies are designed to address potential problems in a target population before they start or before they become highly problematic. Much of that work has used traditional health education models that rely on teaching and advertising about the health risks and pharmacological dangers of substance use. Most would agree that it is a good thing to be more knowledgeable about potential substances one might consume, but unfortunately this knowledge alone has not proven to have much effect in reducing problems, especially in youthful populations that are not particularly concerned about long-term health consequences or mortality. Moreover, most advertising directed at inoculating youthful populations takes a negative approach, relying on rational behaviorist assumptions that people inevitably avoid actions that incur punishment or negative consequences for themselves. Attempts to scare young people straight-to "scare the health into them" by vividly portraying extreme dangers of use-lose credibility, however, as youths dismiss their own chance of such an event, believing it to be relatively improbable (with some accurate statistical basis for that notion, regarding extreme consequences).

More positive proactive strategies attempting to change individuals have often concentrated on changing attitudes with techniques such as values clarification training and self-esteem enhancement exercises. Other strategies seek to create positive "alternative" social events. The idea in each instance is to give students the armor, or at least the social diversion, to avoid alcohol and other drug abuse. Again, however, costs in many of these labor-intensive programs are high and a notable reduction in alcohol or other drug abuse with these methods has not been demonstrated.

In the face of these limitations and failures, prevention work has begun to concentrate more on the environment and how the larger culture within which students live may offer the critical focal point for successful prevention. This perspective looks at how phenomena beyond the individual's personality and personal values and interests may be important determinants of the individual's behavior and to what extent they can be changed. The discussion and research now emanating from this environmental movement takes two directions, although they are by no means necessarily mutually exclusive. The first pursues a public policy strategy: creating legal and institutional policy restrictions in the school environment to reduce access to alcohol, tobacco, and other substances. It institutes punitive measures and controls to discourage problem behavior overall. These policies are set up not only as environmental controls on individuals but also as constraints on business and organizations within the community that affect the availability and promotion of alcohol and other substances. In some circumstances, these policies have been effective, to a degree, in reducing problems among adolescents. In college populations, however, creating new restrictive policies as a singular response to problems has not to date produced the desired reduction in problem use.

The Emergence of the Social Norms Approach

Finally, we come to what we call the social norms approach, with its own theories of behavior and strategies for intervention. It can be understood as environmental in that it is not immediately concerned with directly changing an individual's personal attitude. It uses, instead, the revelation of accurate information about the environmental context-in the form of group or population norms-to reduce individual problem behavior and enhance protective behavior. On the surface, the approach may sound a bit nonsensical: using what already exists in terms of normative patterns regarding substance use to change or reduce the problem behavior within those patterns. But there is a simple, perhaps elegant, logic to the approach, as we shall see. What is demanded of prevention specialists and health educators when first encountering the social norms philosophy and strategy is that they be willing to suspend their accustomed notion of how to change behavior and start thinking "outside the box."

The story of the development of the social norms approach begins with research documenting misperceptions about peer norms. The initial systematic research on this topic was conducted several years ago at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Perkins and Berkowitz, 1986), a small private college in upstate New York. Research on this student population demonstrated a pervasive and continuing pattern of misperception about alcohol norms among student peers. Students generally believed the norm for the frequency and amount of drinking among peers was much higher than the actual norm or average level of consumption, and they believed their peers were much more permissive in personal attitude about substance use than was the true pattern of attitudes. Even though actual levels of consumption in this college population were fairly high as found in many college environments, the misperceptions about the norms for peer attitudes and use still far outpaced the actual norms.

Following this research, similar misperceptions of alcohol norms were found (and reported in unpublished prevention program research) at institutions diverse in region, size, and student characteristics, among them the University of California (Los Angeles), Linfield College (Oregon), Carroll College (Wisconsin), the University of Virginia, and the University of Arizona. Published research demonstrating pervasive misperception of peer drinking norms was subsequently reported from studies at the University of Washington (Baer, Stacy, and Larimer, 1991), Princeton University (Prentice and Miller, 1993), and Northern Illinois University (Haines and Spear, 1996). Among students attending a university in the Northwest, Page, Scanlan, and Gilbert (1999) found that males and females alike overestimated the extent of heavy episodic drinking among their peers of the same and opposite gender. In research conducted on nationwide data from colleges and universities that have participated in the Core Institute Alcohol and Drug Survey, Perkins and others (1999) found most students perceived substantially more use of alcohol among their peers than really occurred at their school in all of the one hundred institutions in the study. This pattern of misperception was the result at each particular institution, regardless of the actual level of use locally. Thus we now know that exaggerated perception of alcohol norms is commonly entrenched in both public and private schools of every size across the country.

Likewise, these patterns of exaggerated perception have been found for all other drug types included in substance use research (Perkins, 1994; Perkins and others, 1999). Misperceived norms also exist across subpopulations of youth-not just among men, not just among women, not just among certain ethnic groups, nor simply among students who are living in residence halls, but also among commuter students, Greek organizations, and independents (cf. Baer, Stacy, and Larimer, 1991; Baer and Carney, 1993; Borsari and Carey, 1999). Various groups may have their own level of actual use, but misperceptions are widely held across most subpopulations. Furthermore, these misperceived norms are not unique to college populations; they can also be found in the high school context (Beck and Treiman, 1996) and statewide populations of young adults (Linkenbach, 1999).

Importantly, none of this research claims that alcohol or other drug abuse is only a minor or inconsequential problem among adolescents and college students. The evidence is clear, for example, that collegiate alcohol abuse in particular presents substantial and fairly widespread consequences that negatively affect the abusing individuals, others around them, and the academic institution with which they are associated (Perkins, 2002b). Rather, the findings of social norms research point out that, regardless of actual problem level, perception of the pervasiveness of these problems far outpaces actuality.

Causes and Consequences of Misperceived Norms

Perkins (1991, 1997, 2002a) put forth a comprehensive theory of the causes and consequences of this phenomenon that was based on attribution theory, social conversation mechanisms, and cultural media predicting that these misperceptions would be found among most students in virtually all peer-intensive environments. First, there is the general social psychological tendency to erroneously attribute observed behaviors of other people to their disposition, and to think the behavior is typical of the individual when the action cannot be explained by the specific context or put into perspective by knowing what the other person usually does most of the time. So when one observes a peer involved in substance abuse, one tends to think it is characteristic of that individual when it cannot be explained as an unusual or rare event by personal knowledge of the context. We simply tend to assume that what we have observed of others on occasion is what they normally do if we have no concrete basis to think otherwise.

Second, the extravagant behavior of an individual or a few people under the influence of alcohol or other drugs is easily noticed and remembered, whether it is a funny scene of uninhibited action, the disgusting circumstance of someone sick from inebriation, or a frightening encounter with a belligerent or violent individual. Youths go home from parties and social gatherings remembering and talking about these incidents and focusing on how drunk or "wasted" some peers were, rather than talking about the less interesting majority who remained abstinent or sober. We simply do not collect information from a cross-section of peers in social gatherings and reflect on it in casual conversation. Instead, the tendency is to recall the most vivid behaviors and then conversation gravitates to the extreme incidents, in the end making them seem more common than is really the case.

Finally, cultural media reaffirm and amplify these exaggerations. Music and film entertainment for youth and young adults frequently depicts and often glamorizes substance use, making it appear to be more common than it is among most youths. Then news media and community forums give headline attention to the problem behaviors among youths, rather than highlighting the healthy majority who are typically not seen as newsworthy. As the news and public discussion concentrate on the problem, the fact that it is a statistical minority gets lost on youths who simply hear the story that many young people are involved with alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. This story quickly gets translated to "most" and "almost all" youths, as it is passed along in casual conversation. Left unchallenged, the exaggeration will persist over time.

Continues...

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Table of Contents

Tables and Figures.

Preface.

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION.

1. The Emergence and Evolution of the Social Norms Approach to Substance Abuse Prevention (H. Wesley Perkins).

PART TWO: CASE STUDIES OF COLLEGE EXPERIMENTS TO REDUCE ALCOHOL ABUSE.

2. The Northern Illinois University Experiment: A Longitudinal Case Study of the Social Norms Approach (Michael P. Haines, Gregory P. Barker).

3. The Hobart and William Smith Colleges Experiment: A Synergistic Social Norms Approach Using Print, Electronic Media, and Curriculum Infusion to Reduce Collegiate Problem Drinking (H. Wesley Perkins, David W. Craig).

4. The University of Arizona’s Campus Health Social Norms Media Campaign (Koreen Johannessen, Peggy Glider).

5. Applying the Social Norms Model to Universal and Indicated Alcohol Interventions at Western Washington University (Patricia M. Fabiano).

6. The Rowan University Social Norms Project (Linda R. Jeffrey, Pamela Negro, DeMond S. Miller, John D. Frisone).

7. The Small Groups Norms-Challenging Model: Social Norms Interventions with Targeted High-Risk Groups (Je anne M. Far, John A. Miller).

PART THREE: EXPANDING SOCIAL NORMS INTERVENTIONS TO OTHER COLLEGE STUDENT APPLICATIONS.

8. Perceptions, Norms, and Tobacco Use of College Residence Hall Freshmen: Evaluation of a Social Norms Marketing Intervention (Linda C. Hancock, Neil W. Henry).

9. A Social Norms Approach to Building Campus Support for Policy Change (William DeJong).

PART FOUR: YOUNG ADULTS AND SOCIAL NORMS WORK BEYOND THE CAMPUS.

10. Misperceptions of Peer Alcohol Norms in a Statewide Survey of Young Adults (Jeffrey W. Linkenbach, H. Wesley Perkins).

11. The Montana Model: Development and Overview of a Seven-Step Process for Implementing Macro-Level Social Norms Campaigns (Jeffrey W. Linkenbach).

PART FIVE: THE SOCIAL NORMS APPROACH IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL POPULATIONS.

12. The Imaginary Lives of Peers: Patterns of Substance Use and Misperceptions of Norms Among Secondary School Students (H. Wesley Perkins, David W. Craig).

13. MOST of Us Are Tobacco Free: An Eight-Month Social Norms Campaign Reducing Youth Initiation of Smoking in Montana (Jeffrey W. Linkenbach, H. Wesley Perkins).

14. Using Social Norms to Reduce Alcohol and Tobacco Use in Two Midwestern High Schools (Michael P. Haines, Gregory P. Barker, Richard Rice).

PART SIX: FURTHER APPLICATIONS AND CHALLENGES FOR THE SOCIAL NORMS MODEL IN PROMOTING HEALTH AND WELL-BEING.

15. Parents’ Perceptions of Parenting Norms: Using the Social Norms Approach to Reinforce Effective Parenting (Jeffrey W. Linkenbach, H. Wesley Perkins, William DeJong).

16. Applications of Social Norms Theory to Other Health and Social Justice Issues (Alan David Berkowitz).

17. The Promise and Challenge of Future Work Using the Social Norms Model (H. Wesley Perkins).

About the Editor.

About the Contributors.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Too much talk about the alcohol issue is rhetorical. The Social Norms Approach offers a refreshingly honest and helpful approach to the drinking crisis on our campuses by using the peer group as part of the solution."
— Richard H. Hersh, president, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut

" book is a compendium of applications and cutting-edge findings for a promising new approach to campus alcohol abuse prevention. It is essential reading for student personnel administrators in college mental health, fraternity and sorority affairs, and alcohol and other drug abuse counseling."
— Phillip W. Meilman, director, Counseling and Psychological Services, Courtesy Professor of Human Development and associate professor of psychology in Clinical Psychiatry, Cornell University

"At last, a compendium of social norms information that addresses both the theory and practice of employing this model in higher and secondary education. This social norms handbook for educators, counselors, and clinicians succinctly prepares these professionals to act on high-risk student behavior rather than react to it."
& mdash; Robert J. Chapman, coordinator, AOD Program and associate faculty, clinical and counseling psychology, La Salle University

"Social norms pioneer Wes Perkins has assembled the country's leading theorists and practitioners to create the most comprehensive guide available in this cutting-edge field."
— Timothy C. Marchell, director of alcohol policy initiatives, Cornell University

"High-risk drinking and its consequences continue to plague those of us in higher education administration. If five years from now we are still chasing our tails ineffectually because we haven't put the empirically based strategies outlined in this book into practice on our campuses— then shame on us."
— Ray Schwarz, associate vice president for student affairs, State University of New York, College at New Paltz

"In my community, multiple efforts to reduce underage drinking accomplished little more than dividing it between those who believe in an abstinence-only approach, and those who believe in a risk-reduction approach. When I began to introduce the social norm theory, I found a new sense of hope that there may finally be something that we could do, as a community, to make progress on this important issue. From the students themselves, to the parents and teachers, our community is uniting behind the positive, nonmoralistic and noncoercive approach found in this book."
— Lisa Stone, MD, vice-chairman, Board of Health, member, Drug and Alcohol Prevention Advisory Coalition, Wellesley, Massachusetts, and parent of three teenagers

Editorial Reviews

Influential approach based on correcting beliefs about peer substance use.” (Drug & Alcohol Findings, Spring 2005)

From the Publisher