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Educational Efforts

Social Norms Strategy

The use of the social norms approach to education is based on theory and research showing that students misperceive their peers’ attitudes and behaviors regarding alcohol, and students tend to drink according to these misperceptions. The social norms approach provides information on these misperceptions by challenging the perception that high-risk use is the norm and by supporting lower-risk use of alcohol. By informing students of the accurate norms about alcohol use on campus, it is anticipated that students will change their drinking behaviors to be consistent with the true campus norm.

Unfortunately, there has not been the decrease in alcohol use (amount and frequency) and the decrease in negative consequences that other schools such as Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Arizona have witnessed. As a result the social norms team engaged in a comprehensive critical analysis examining each step of the social norms approach in an attempt to identify the problem areas so effective alterations could be made to the approach. Social norms is an approach that must be tailored to each campus. Change cannot be expected at UNH simply by mirroring what was done at Northern Illinois University. It does take a few years to fine tune the approach to a specific campus.

The social norms team invited in Dr. Alan Berkowitz, an independent consultant and co-founder of the social norms approach, to talk with people on campus and help isolate our problem. He echoed the inferences by the team. There are three issues that are barriers to an effective social norms campaign at UNH. The first, and most important, is the lack of synergy of messages. Students get their information from a variety of sources including peers, media, administrators, faculty, and of course the social norms team. While the social norms team is creating and publicizing messages that describe the low-risk alcohol use by the majority, there are other messages that counteract that. Faculty not giving tests or quizzes on Friday and stating that they are doing this because students will be hung over or absent diminishes the social norm messages. Administrators in the media stating that alcohol is a huge problem that needs immediate attention counteracts the message that most UNH students are using alcohol in low-risk ways. The riots have also played a role. The impression is that the riots involved all UNH students and all of the students at the riots were drunk and acting violently. The social norms team doesn’t want to downplay the seriousness of the riots, but the fact is that most of the students were not part of the riots, and of those present most were not acting violently. But the reality is different from the perception.

Another issue is the believability of the message. Data demonstrates that students are seeing the messages but these are not changing perceptions. As a result behavior is not changed either. The social norms team believes that part of this reason is that students don't believe the messages. This makes sense. People have particular perceptions which they base on their senses although this can often be wrong. When someone attempts to change their perceptions people experience cognitive dissonance - the two pieces of information, what they experience and the message that they are being told by the social norms team, are not consistent. The person has to make a choice as to what they will believe. Often times, the person will trust their inaccurate own senses over accurate information someone else tells them. This is an inherent challenge in the social norms approach. The riots help to reinforce the personal experience over scientific data. The image and talk of the riots are vivid and powerful, thus it is easier to believe that as the norm rather than a message seen on a poster. The social norms team needs to find a way to make our messages more believable.

Another barrier is the salience, or relevancy, of the messages. Although UNH has a very homogenous student body, it is relatively large. Our campus doesn't have a high level of UNH-identify. Students don't necessarily define themselves as a "typical" UNH student. When the social norms team posts messages students see them, but don't identify with them. Students don't say, "Hey, that stat is for people like me, my friends." This is not the issue with other schools. Recent research suggests that students are more influenced by the perceptions regarding use and attitudes they hold of their close friends than the perceptions they have of the campus population. Thus we need to find a way to make the messages more salient which can be done by focusing on small groups. These groups could be Greeks, 1st year students, students living in a particular residence hall.

In order for social norms to work at UNH we need to facilitate a paradigm shift. Traditionally, colleges and universities deal with high-risk alcohol use in a reactive, problem-centered way. Our perspective needs to change to one that is focused on the positive behaviors and low-risk alcohol use. This positive-centered approach needs to happen with other issues as well. When the campus community approaches issues by focusing on the positives and discussing the majority behavior that behavior is empowered. Currently, the campus is empowering the minority by focusing on their behavior. Sharing the reality, positive behavior, corrects misperceptions which in turn facilitates behavior change. Students will then begin to act in a way that is consistent with the majority of the students, in reality not consistent with what they misperceive to be the majority of students.

Policies and Enforcement

Educational Efforts

Non Alcoholic Programming

Substance Free Housing

Campus/Community/State Committees

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Assessment