Personalized feedback intervention, which includes normative feedback comparing personal drinking to that of similar peers, appears effective in reducing alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences among college students. Both descriptive norms (drinking behaviors) and injunctive norms (approval of drinking) help elicit self-other discrepancies (SODs) for college student drinking. While descriptive and injunctive norms play an important role in alcohol interventions, fewer studies have examined the role of consequence norms. Therefore, a recent study examined SODs for alcohol-related consequences among college students. Study participants included undergraduates that enrolled in order to fulfill research requirements for a specific course. Participants completed an online survey where they self-reported weekly alcohol use, past-month alcohol-related consequences, as well as descriptive and injunctive normative perceptions of alcohol-related consequences (n=269). Results indicate that participants overestimated the number of alcohol-related consequences experienced by their peers. Participants also deemed alcohol-related consequences as more acceptable for their peers to experience than themselves. Findings indicated no differences in SODs found between participants that did and did not consume alcohol (only 53% of participants reported past-month drinking).
Take Away: participants from this study overestimated the frequency and acceptability of alcohol-related consequences among their peers. Because brief normative interventions appear effective in college students, future personalized feedback interventions may consider targeting SODs for alcohol-related consequences.