The role of perceived injunctive alcohol norms in adolescent drinking behavior

Abstract

Peers have a major influence on youth during adolescence, and perceptions about peer alcohol use (perceived norms) are often associated with personal drinking behavior among youth. Most of the research on perceived norms among adolescents focuses on perceived descriptive norms only, or perceptions about peers’ behavior, and correcting these perceptions are a major focus of many prevention programs with adolescents. In contrast, perceived injunctive norms, which are personal perceptions about peers’ attitudes regarding the acceptability of behaviors, have been minimally examined in the adolescent drinking literature. Yet correcting perceptions about these perceived peer attitudes may be an important component to include in prevention programs with youth. Using a sample of 2,493 high school-aged youth (mean age = 17.3), we assessed drinking behavior (past year use; past month frequency, quantity, and peak drinks), drinking consequences, and perceived descriptive and injunctive norms to examine the relationships of perceived injunctive and descriptive norms on adolescent drinking behavior. Findings indicated that although perceived descriptive norms were associated with some drinking outcomes (past year use; past month frequency; past month quantity; peak drinks), perceived injunctive norms were associated with all drinking outcomes, including outcomes of consequences, even after controlling for perceived descriptive norms. Findings suggest that consideration of perceived injunctive norms may be important in models of adolescent drinking. Prevention programs that do not include injunctive norms feedback may miss an important opportunity to enhance effectiveness of such prevention programs targeting adolescent alcohol use.

The influence of misperceptions about social norms on substance use among school‐aged adolescents

“…Injunctive norms (also known as “prescriptive norms”) represent perceived moral rules and reflect the individual's perception of what is commonly approved or disapproved by others. In fact, adding an injunctive message that the desired behavior is approved by others was found to be an important factor in substance use by itself (Pedersen et al, ) and was shown to reduce the boomerang effect in the context of energy conservation (Schultz et al, ). An example of an injunctive message in the context of energy use is when a household received a happy face (☺) on his or her energy report after it had consumed less than the average amount of energy for the neighborhood, indicating the social desirability for the household to remain better than average and thus mitigate the boomerang effect (Schultz et al, ).…”

The Role of Social Media Content on Solitary Drinking Among Korean Adults

“…Studies have shown that both descriptive and injunctive norms have direct effects on alcohol use. 17 Norm perceptions can lead to alcohol use by reinforcing alcohol expectancies (AEs). AEs are expectations of what will happen after drinking.…”

Social Norm, Family Communication, and HBV Screening among Asian Americans

“…The literature provides strong evidence for the impact of social norms on a variety of behaviors, including alcohol consumption (Padon, Rimal, Jernigan, Siegel, & DeJong, 2016; Pedersen et al, 2017; Rimal, 2008; Rimal & Mollen, 2013), tobacco use (Ali & Dwyer, 2009; Mead, Rimal, Ferrence, & Cohen, 2014; Mereish, Goldbach, Burgess, & DiBello, 2017), cannabis use (Ecker & Buckner, 2014; Mereish et al, 2017), healthy food consumption (Mollen, Rimal, Ruiter, & Kok, 2013), contraceptive use (Rimal & Lapinski, 2015), and HIV testing (Batona, Gagnon, Simonyan, Guedou, & Alary, 2015). Findings on the role of norms do vary, however.…”