Social Anxiety as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Perceived Norms and Drinking

ABSTRACT. Objective: Individuals with greater social anxiety are particularly vulnerable to cannabis-related impairment. Descriptive norms (beliefs about others' use) and injunctive norms (beliefs regarding others' approval of risky use) may be particularly relevant to cannabis-related behaviors among socially anxious persons if they use cannabis for fear of evaluation for deviating from what they believe to be normative behaviors. Yet, little research has examined the impact of these social norms on the relationships between social anxiety and cannabis use behaviors. Method: The current study investigated whether the relationships of social anxiety to cannabis use and use-related problems varied as a function of social norms. The sample comprised 230 (63.0% female) current cannabis-using undergraduates. Results: Injunctive norms (regarding parents, not friends) moderated the relationship between social anxiety and cannabis-related problem severity. Post hoc probing indicated that among participants with higher (but not lower) social anxiety, those with greater norm endorsement reported the most severe impairment. Injunctive norms (parents) also moderated the relationship between social anxiety and cannabis use frequency such that those with higher social anxiety and lower norm endorsement used cannabis less frequently. Descriptive norms did not moderate the relationship between social anxiety and cannabis use frequency. Conclusions: Socially anxious cannabis users appear to be especially infl uenced by beliefs regarding parents' approval of risky cannabis use. Results underscore the importance of considering reference groups and the specifi c types of norms in understanding factors related to cannabis use behaviors among this vulnerable population. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 75, 74-82, 2014)

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Cannabis Use Behaviors and Social Anxiety: The Roles of Perceived Descriptive and Injunctive Social Norms

Ecker

Buckner

2014

“…Therefore, social anxiety does not seem to have a proximal effect on the norm-drinking relationship in that people with high social anxiety do not more strongly attend to immediate drinking norms once they are in a drinking situation. However, it is possible that a different process may be at work in that norms may still drive drinking-related behavior, as has been found in previous cross-sectional work Neighbors et al, 2007a). For example, people with high social anxiety might be more infl uenced by norms to go to settings where drinking is common (e.g., a party) to try to fi t in.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Therefore, to avoid being evaluated negatively, they may focus more on peer behavior and be more susceptible to norms than those low in social anxiety. Neighbors et al (2007a) and LaBrie et al (2008) found that the relationship between perceived norms and drinking was stronger among students who were higher in social anxiety, especially men. This is in line with focus theory, which suggests that dispositional factors may affect norm focus (Kallgren et al, 2000).…”

Section: Individual Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Daily Relationship Between Event-Specific Drinking Norms and Alcohol Use: A Four-Year Longitudinal Study

O’Grady¹,

Cullum²,

Tennen³

et al. 2011

ABSTRACT. Objective: This study examined how social-infl uence processes operate during specifi c drinking contexts as well as the stability and change in these processes throughout the college years. Method: Using a measurement-burst design, a hybrid of longitudinal and daily diary methods, we assessed the relationship between event-specifi c descriptive drinking norms and personal drinking. College students (N = 523) completed a baseline survey followed by a 30-day daily diary each year for up to the 4 study years. The baseline survey assessed participant gender and social anxiety, and the daily survey assessed personal drinking and perceived peer drinking (i.e., event-specifi c descriptive norms) during social drinking events. Results: Multilevel modeling revealed that men's social drinking slightly increased over the 4 years, whereas women's drinking remained steady. Further, on social drinking days when event-specifi c descriptive norms were high, students drank more, but this relationship was stronger for men than women and did not change over time. However, men's drinking norm perceptions increased across years, whereas women's decreased. Social anxiety did not moderate the relationship between norms and drinking. Conclusions: We demonstrate that although gender differences exist in the stability and change of personal drinking, norms, and normative infl uence on drinking across the years of college, the acute social infl uence of the norm on personal drinking remains a stable and important predictor of drinking throughout college. Our fi ndings can assist with the identifi cation of how, when, and for whom to target social infl uence-based interventions aimed at reducing drinking. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 72, 633-641, 2011)

“…In the analyses conducted by Read and colleagues (2005), gender was treated as a covariate, and potential gender and ethnic differences in the predictive strength of typical-collegestudent norms were not tested. Differences between men and women have been noted with regard to the role of perceived norms, with several studies suggesting that perceived norms more strongly infl uence the drinking behavior of men than of women (LaBrie et al, 2008;Neighbors et al, 2007a;Read et al, 2002). Read and colleagues' (2005) investigation of perceived norms was also limited in that they were unable to examine ethnic differences because of their largely White sample.…”

Section: Perceived Norms and Alcohol Use During The Transition To Colmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Norms for Drinking in the Transition From High School to College and Beyond

Stappenbeck¹,

Quinn²,

Wetherill³

et al. 2010

ABSTRACT. Objective:We evaluated selection and socialization processes associated with perceived descriptive norms and drinking from high school through the fi rst 2 years of college. Method: Participants (n = 2,247; 61.6% female) completed measures of high school drinking and descriptive drinking norms for their social group and the typical student at the university they were entering, as well as alcohol use and social-group norms through their sophomore year of college. We conducted structural equation models by gender and ethnicity to test high school drinking and drinking norms as predictors of collegiate drinking and social-group norms. Results: Perceptions of typical-college-student drinking during high school predicted freshman-year drinking for men but not women and for White but not Asian or Hispanic students. High school social-group norms predicted freshman drinking for White but not Asian or Hispanic students, whereas freshman social-group norms predicted sophomore drinking for all participants. Conclusions: Selection and socialization processes co-occur during this transitional time. Heavy drinkers in high school who perceive their friends to be heavy drinkers select into college social groups with perceived heavy drinking. Men and White students who perceive heavy drinking by the typical college student tend to drink heavily in college and choose social groups with perceived heavy drinking. These results support the importance of interventions that are tailored to the individual and that target perceptions of typical-college-student and social-group drinking before entering college for Whites and men but after matriculation for women, Asian, and Hispanic students. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 71, 895-903, 2010)