The Social Norms approach has been used most notably to reduce heavy episodic alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm among college students. Among the institutions reporting significant reductions include Northern Illinois University (Haines and Spear, 1996; Haines, 1996; Haines and Barker, 2003), the University of Arizona (Johannessen et al., 1999; Glider et al., 2001; Johannessen and Glider, 2003) Western Washington University (Fabiano, 2003), and Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Perkins and Craig, 2002, 2003).

These campus-wide interventions, implemented at large schools (Haines and Barker, 2003; Johannessen et al., 1999; Fabiano, 2003; Foss, 2004) and small (Perkins and Craig, 2003), and at demographically diverse institutions throughout the country, reported reductions across various demographic categories, as well as among both moderate and problematic drinkers.

In addition, a number of effective social norms interventions have targeted specific sub-populations (e.g., first-year students, fraternity and sorority members, and athletes) within the campus environment. Some of these have employed peer-based programming efforts (Cimini et al., 2002), whereas others have used a workshop or counseling format to reduce misperceptions and reduce problematic drinking (Barnett et al., 1996; Berkowitz and Perkins, 1987; Borsari and Carey, 2000; Steffian, 1999). Successful experiments using the social norms approach have also been conducted with students identified as heavy drinkers (Agostinelli et al., 1995; Collins et al., 2002; Cunningham et al., 2001; Schroeder et al., 1998) as well as those living in small residential groupings (Schroeder et al., 1998).

Interestingly, the social norms approach has also been effective in reducing the prevalence of smoking (Hancock et al., 2002) and in delaying the onset of cigarette use among college students (Hancock and Henry, 2003), as well as in reducing alcohol and cigarette use among adolescents (Hansen and Graham, 1991; Linkenbach and Perkins, 2003) and high school students (Haines et al., 2003). Most recently this approach has been applied to reduce bullying in a study of six middle schhools (Perkins, Craig, and Perkins, 2011).

References

Agostinelli, G., Brown, J.M., Miller, W.R. Effects of normative feedback on consumption among heavy drinking students. Journal of Drug Education. 1995;25:31-40.

Barnett, L. A., Far, J. M., Maus, A. L., & Miller, J. A. Changing perceptions of peer norms as a drinking reduction program for college students. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education. 1996; 41(2)39-62.

Berkowitz, A. D. & Perkins, H. W. Current issues in effective alcohol education programming. Alcohol policies and practices on college and university campuses. Joan Sherwood (Ed). Columbus, OH: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Monograph Series, 1987:69-85.

Borsari, B., Carey, K.B. Effects of a brief motivational intervention with college student drinkers. Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology. 200;68:728-733.

Cimini, M.D., Page, J. C., Trujillo, D., Using peer theater to deliver social norms information: the Middle Earth Players program. The Report on Social Norms. Working Paper No. 8: 2(1), Little Falls, NJ, PaperClip Communications, 2002.

Collins, S.E., Carey, K.B., Sliwinski, M.J. Mailed personalized normative feedback as a brief intervention for at-risk college drinkers. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 2002;63:559-567

Cunningham, J.A., Wild, T.C., Bondy, S.J., Lin, E. Impact of normative feddback on problem drinkers: a small-area population study. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 2001;62(2):228-233.

Fabiano, P. M. Applying the social norms model to universal and indicated alcohol interventions at Western Washington University. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, And Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Foss, R. et al. Social norms program reduces measured and self-reported drinking at UNC-CH. The Report on Social Norms: Working Paper #14. Little Falls, NL, PaperClip Communications, 2004.

Haines, M.P., Barker, G., Rice, R. Using social norms to reduce alcohol and tobacco use in two midwestern high schools. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, And Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Haines, M. and G. Barker. The NIU Experiment: A Case Study of the Social Norms Approach. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, And Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Haines, M.P. and Spear, A. F. (1996). "Changing the perception of the norm: A strategy to decrease binge drinking among college students." Journal of American College Health, 45, 134-140.

Hancock, L. and Henry, N. Perceptions, norms and tobacco use in college residence hall freshmen: Evaluation of a social norms marketing intervention. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, And Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Hancock, L. et al. Applying social norms marketing to tobacco cessation and prevention: lessons learned from three campaigns. The Report on Social Norms: Working Paper No.6. Little Falls, NJ. PaperClip Communications, 2002.

Hansen, W. B. & J. W. Graham. Preventing alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use among adolescents: peer pressure resistance training versus establishing conservative norms. Preventive Medicine. 1991;20:414-430.

Jeffrey, L., P. Negro, D. Miller and J. Frisone. "The Rowan University social norms project. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, And Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Johannessen, K. et al. The University of Arizona's campus health social norms media campaign. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, And Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Johannessen, K., Collins, C., Mills-Novoa, B., & Glider, P. (1999). A Practical Guide to Alcohol Abuse Prevention: A Campus Case Study in Implementing Social Norms and Environmental Management Approaches. Tucson, AZ: Campus Health Service, The University of Arizona.

Linkenbach, J.W. and Perkins, H.W. MOST of Us are tobacco free: an eight-month social norms campaign reducing youth initiation of smoking in Montana. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Perkins, H. W. and Craig, D. The HWS experiment: A synergistic social norms approach using print, electronic media and curriculum infusion to reduce collegiate problem drinking. In Perkins, H.W. (Ed.) The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Perkins, H. W. and Craig, D. (2002) A Multifaceted Social Norms Approach to Reduce High-Risk Drinking. Newton, MA: The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, Education Development Center, Inc.

Perkins, H. W., Craig, D., and Perkins J. Using Social Norms to Reduce Bullying: A Research Intervention in Five Middle Schools. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 14(5):703-722, 2011. (abstract, free full text).

Schroeder, C. M. & Prentice, D. A. Exposing pluralistic ignorance to reduce alcohol use among college students. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1998;28: 2150-2180.

Steffian, G. Correction of normative misperception: an alcohol abuse prevention program. Journal of Drug Education, 29(2):115-138, 1999.