Perceived Risks and Normative Beliefs as Explanatory Models for College Student Alcohol Involvement: An Assessment of a Campus with Conventional Alcohol Control Policies and Enforcement Practices

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ISSN 0027-6021

AUTHOR:
Todd F. Lewis and Dennis L. Thombs

TITLE:
Perceived Risks and Normative Beliefs as Explanatory Models for College Student Alcohol Involvement: An Assessment of a Campus with Conventional Alcohol Control Policies and Enforcement Practices

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Lewis, T. F. , Thombs, D. L. (2004). Perceived Risks and Normative Beliefs as Explanatory Models for College Student Alcohol Involvement: An Assessment of a Campus with Conventional Alcohol Control Policies and Enforcement Practices. NASPA Journal, 42(2), Art. 5. Retrieved September 09, 2008, from http://publications.naspa.org/naspajournal/vol42/iss2/art5

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ABSTRACT:
The aim of this study was to conduct a multivariate assessment of college student drinking motivations at a campus with conventional alcohol control policies and enforcement practices, including the establishment and dissemination of alcohol policies and the use of warnings to arouse fear of sanctions. Two explanatory models were compared: perceptions of risk and normative beliefs. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to 1,396 students at a large Midwestern university. Data analyses were conducted on the subsample of participants who had reported using alcohol within the past 12 months (n = 1,322). Overall, the results from a canonical correlation analysis indicated that alcohol involvement was best explained by normative beliefs about the drinking practices of one’s closest friends. Perceptions of drinking risk were less important to the explanation of alcohol involvement, and some of these measures unexpectedly had positive associations with indicators of alcohol risk behavior. The findings call into question the conventional deterrence strategies used in many university communities (i.e., belief that students who perceive there to be a low risk of receiving sanctions are those most likely to engage in alcohol related misbehavior). Furthermore, the findings suggest that effective interventions will need to impact students' normative beliefs about the drinking practices of proximal peer groups.

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