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Michael P. Haines: Social norms approach could reverse UW's
party school status
By Michael P. Haines
August 25, 2003
You can bet the administrators at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison are not celebrating the college's designation as
the No. 2 party school in the U.S. by Princeton Review. Instead,
they're tackling how to curb the alleged alcohol abuse and clean up
the school's reputation.
Yes, I said alleged alcohol abuse. Research has proven that
college students drink far less than the public, campus
administrators and even their fellow students perceive. In fact,
nearly two-thirds of college students drink moderately, infrequently
or not at all.
Is the UW-Madison an exception? Probably not, but no one believes
it, including the students.
Before campus health officers and administrators run out and
implement scare tactics, tight restrictions on social functions and
stiff penalties as means of controlling alcohol consumption among
students, they should consider that those approaches have never been
proven to work.
The most effective method of curbing substance abuse on college
campuses is a scientific approach, based in fact, called social
norms. The strategy of a social norms approach is to communicate the
truth about peer norms in terms of what the majority of students
actually think and do, all on the basis of credible data drawn from
the college's own student population.
The resulting messages to students, delivered via a variety of
media, are positive ones. The norm for student behavior is actually
one of responsibility, safety and moderation, because the research
proves that this is how the majority of students behave. When
students learn about the true norm, they begin to adhere to it more
and more.
As a result, the actual norm becomes even more moderate as the
initial misconception of excessive substance abuse among the student
population becomes reversed. Colleges that educate students about
actual, normal student behavior are proven to achieve an average 20
percent reduction in high-risk drinking in only two years.
The approach has been implemented successfully by colleges large
and small, including the University of Arizona, Northern Illinois
University, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, to name a few.
Federal and state agencies - including the Center for Substance
Abuse Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Department of Education, Department of Justice, Department of Health
and Human Services, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
and the National Science Foundation - have supported social norms
initiatives through funding.
When a college gets a bad label, its students, faculty and even
the surrounding community all pay a price. The UW-Madison should act
now to start changing its partying reputation and enhancing its
standing in the academic world and in the local area by implementing
a social norms program. All it takes to get started is a visit to
the Web site of our National Social Norms Resource Center at
www.socialnorms.org, or a minimal investment in a new book called
"The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College
Substance Abuse," edited by H. Wesley Perkins. Both resources
contain case studies of effective social norms campaigns and steps
to guide the university in implementing such a program.
Get started, work the program and measure the results. The
UW-Madison might lose its top party school designation, but it will
have a real reason to celebrate.
Michael P. Haines is director of the National Social Norms
Resource Center, which is part of the Social Science Research
Institute at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. E-mail:
[email protected].
Published: 7:02 AM
8/25/03 |