1. Social Practical
Charlie

2. Introduction

3. Our study Why is this relevant?
Effect of descriptive and injunctive norms on attitudes towards drinking.
Why is this relevant?
Drinking cultures becoming more extreme: Time and money of emergency services being wasted (Turner, 2017)
Excess alcohol can have serious consequences: Psychological, Academic and Physical (Hummer et al, 2013)
In the UK 7,327 people died from alcohol-specific causes in the UK in 2016, which equates to a rate of 11.7 deaths per 100,000 population!*
Drinking alcohol is a normative part of student behaviour at university (Chen & Kandel, 1995)
Due to the serious consequences interventions are needed
* olrelateddeathsintheunitedkingdom/registeredin2016#alcohol-specific-death-rates-by-sex
- Our study focused on the effects of descriptive and injunctive norms on attitudes towards drinking and reducing alcohol consumption in Exeter University students.
- In recent years student drinking cultures have become more extreme, with some students boasting that they waste emergency services’ time and money.
- A study was carried out in York university which found that that York university students created drinking charts to boast about the number of times ambulance services ‘were called to assist inebriated students’.
- Suggesting that alcohol consumption is becoming out of hand amongst university students.
- Excess alcohol has been shown to have serious negative psychological, physical and academic consequences. For example, 7,327 people died from alcohol-specific causes in the UK in 2016, which equates to a rate of 11.7 deaths per 100,000 population
- Alcohol consumption is a normative part of student behavior at university, but due to the serious nature of the consequences it is important to develop interventions to reduce it.

4. Influence of Social norms
Descriptive norms (what other people do)
Stronger predictors of current student drinking behaviour (Larimer, 2004)
Education about descriptive norms can help change drinking behaviour (Barnett et al, 1996)
Injunctive norms (what you think other people do)
Stronger long term influences on drinking behaviour (Lee et al, 2007)
Individual more likely to drink more if they believe peers advocate binge drinking (Prentice & Miller, 1993)
Campaigns should combine and utilize both types of norm to maximise effectiveness.
BUT which norm is most powerful in reducing alcohol consumption in University students.
To date most research is focused on alcohol consumption of the general population, we wished to focus specifically on alcohol consumption in Exeter University students (Cashin et al, 1998)
- Research has shown that that utilizing social norms in campaigns is the most effective method in changing college student’s behavior.
- It is commonly found that descriptive norms are stronger predictors of current student drinking behavior. But that injunctive norms had stronger, more long-term influences on drinking behavior. This suggests interventions and campaigns aiming to reduce excessive drinking may benefit from including both descriptive and injunctive norms.
- Yet most research proposes that education about descriptive norms is most effective in changing student drinking behavior.
- However, Prentice & Miller (1993) found that if an individual believes that their fellow students advocate binge drinking (injunctive norm), increases the likelihood of them consuming more alcohol in the company of peers.
- This leads us to question, what type of norms are most powerful in reducing alcohol consumption on campus? We wish to investigate whether descriptive or injunctive norms have more influence in determining alcohol consumption at Exeter University.
- To date the majority of research on norms and alcohol focuses on general alcohol consumption in the US, whereas our research specifically focuses on reducing alcohol intake within a UK student population at Exeter University.

5. Our hypothesis
The presence of norms will be more influential than no normative influence.
The descriptive norm will have stronger influential effects than the injunctive norm in altering intentions to reduce alcohol consumption.
We took all this into consideration and came up with our hypothesis for the current study:
o The presence of norms will be more influential than no normative influence.
o The descriptive norm will have stronger influential effects than the injunctive norm in altering intentions to reduce alcohol consumption.

6. Method

7. 120 University of Exeter students Aged 18-27 Mean age: 19.98
Participants
120 University of Exeter students
Aged 18-27
Mean age: 19.98
83 were female, 35 were male and 2 chose ‘prefer not to say’
Volunteer sampling; survey was advertised on social media
Add info about course subjects?

8. Design Between subjects design Independent variable:
The content of the article that participants were asked to read prior to answering the questionnaire and ballot.
Dependent variable:
The strength of intention to reduce alcohol consumption
Three conditions:
Injunctive norm
Descriptive norm
Control condition

12. Analysis

13. Was our data usable?
- Checking if out data is reliable before interpretation of the Dependant Variables Manipulation check - Norms scale - Analysis of intentions, - Analysis of beliefs - Analysis of attitudes
Was our Data actually useable?
Before confirming if our research was successful by computing our Dependant Variables we needed to organise and sort out data to check the reliability of our scales. To do this, we checked the cronbach alpha for each of our items to ensure it was over We checked out Manipulation check, and out scales of intentions, attitudes, and beliefs.

14. Manipulation Check
Thankfully our manipulation check was shown to be successful. We did further analysis using a t-test to ensure the manipulation had worked - it proved to be very successful.

15. Injunctive and Descriptive Norm Scale
Our cronbach alpha for the injunctive and descriptive norm condition was very good, indicating that our scale was very reliable.

16. Intention Scale
Intentions: cronbach alpha very high: the scale is reliable
Similarly, our cronbach alpha for our intention scale was high indicating high reliability.

17. Belief Scale
Our cronbach alpha for the belief scale was very low. Therefore, we did some further analysis which showed that if we deleted our first question, the cronbach alpha would increase. So we adjusted our scale to increase the reliability.

18. Attitude Scale
Our cronbach alpha for the attitude scale was also very low. So we did further analysis again and deleted the first question to increase the cronbach alpha to .83
We conducted one way anovas to analyse our results and these will be discussed in the results section. For the most part out scales were reliable with less reliable sales from attitudes and beliefs.

19. Results

20. Results- Manipulation Check
One way anova
Three different conditions responded to our manipulation questions significantly differently,
F(2,116)=10.196, P<0.001
Injunctive norm condition (M=2.70, SD=0.09)
Descriptive norm condition (M=2.07, SD 0.68)
Manipulation check worked
In our research we included a manipulation check and with the use of statistical analysis, it showed that our manipulation check was successful. For further clarity and detail, we had 6 questions, 3 injunctive ques and 3 descriptive ques. The SD for injunctive and descriptive proves that participants in those conditions were susceptible to being manipulated by our research.

21. Results- Main Analysis
One way anova for both attitudes and intentions
Attitudes-
No significant difference between conditions in attitudes towards reducing alcohol
F(2,116)= P=0.34
Intentions-
Marginally significant difference between conditions in intentions towards reducing alcohol
F(2,115)=2.60 P=0.078

22. Results- Main Analysis
Beliefs - more complex
We had to analyse each item separately because the cronbach alpha was so low
Bel 1: F(4,14)= P= 0.912
Be l 2: F(4,14)= P= 0.160
Bel 3: F(4,14)= P=0.856
Bel 4: F(4,14)= P= 0.764
Bel 5: F(4,14)= P=0.487
Bel 6: F(4,14)= P=0.124
Bel 7: F(4,14)=0.229 p=0.922
No significant differences

23. Discussion Overall our hypothesis was not supported
No significant difference between conditions in attitudes towards reducing alcohol BUT marginally significant difference between conditions in intentions towards reducing alcohol.
The presence of norms was not more influential that no normative
What is learnt for theory/application?
Drinking is an important social behaviour for students
We found a marginal difference in intentions of participants to reduce consumption so there may be an openness to reduce alcohol consumption
Hope it was due to our intervention, if so future research should work to enhance the effects of the injunctive norm
These were our hypotheses: and they weren’t supported.
The presence of norms will be more influential than no normative influence. The descriptive norm will have stronger influential effects than the injunctive norm in altering intentions to reduce alcohol consumption.

24. Discussion continued Important Limitations Take home message
The statistics used in the article may not have been believable - 85% may be too high
The article itself may not be perceived as credible
Demand Characteristics and Social Desirability - peer pressure to drink
What about students who didn’t drink alcohol in the first place?
Take home message
Future research needs to be conducted with larger populations of students across a range of UK universities
Drinking is important for students - important information for interventions

25. Thank you for listening
Any questions?