Objective: To determine whether college men's perceptions of campus drinking norms, aggregated at the institution-level, predicted heavy episodic drinking and sexual violence perpetration. Participants: Data were collected from a sample of 1144 first-year male college freshmen enrolled at one of thirty four-year institutions in the state of…

Academic consequences, alcohol use disorders, assaults, and death are real and present dangers for college students problematically consuming alcohol. A number of theories exist that aid in the understanding of problematic alcohol consumption. These theories have been used to create particularly effective interventions to reduce problematic…

Objective: College campuses report alcohol and other drug policy violations as the most frequent reason students receive disciplinary referrals and, thus, are mandated to programming. This study sought to determine predictors of mandated students' alcohol use frequency, and the likelihood of early-onset alcohol using college students enrolled in…

Purpose: This paper explores the impact of a suite of alcohol culture change interventions implemented by Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. The interventions were designed to change the alcohol culture at a bi-annual nation-wide university multi-sport competition known as Uni Nationals. This study aims to understand the critical success…

The extent to which social norms (injunctive and descriptive) are associated with collegiate alcohol use--including binge drinking--has been examined at length, but studies examining the efficacy of interventions derived thereof have reported mixed outcomes. This study examines data from 5,124 college students at 13 different colleges collected by…

A two-group pretest-post-test quasi-experiment was conducted to analyze the impact of curriculum infusion of the social norms approach on students' alcohol perceptions and behaviors. This study extended previous research by examining two types of curriculum infusion, information only (IO) and service learning (SL). Also, owing to variations in…

Background: College binge drinking continues to be a pervasive issue across campuses nationwide. Though curriculum infusion (CI) has been shown to be an effective strategy to reduce students' negative consequences related to alcohol, information about the process is limited. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the content and process…

This study investigated the role of sensation seeking, peer group drinking and self-efficacy in refusing to drink alcohol in influencing alcohol consumption of a sample of 588 Italian university students. Results confirmed that heavy drinkers are typically males living in university residences. Alcohol use is more frequent among students with…

Three experiments investigated the impact of anchors on students' estimates of personal alcohol consumption to better understand the role that this form of bias might have in social norm intervention programs. Experiments I and II found that estimates of consumption were susceptible to anchoring effects when an open-answer and a scale-response…

This study examined the effectiveness of a single-session group motivational enhancement alcohol intervention on adjudicated male college students. Over two sequential academic years, 230 students sanctioned by the university for alcohol-related infractions attended a 60- to 75-minute group intervention. The intervention consisted of a timeline…

This dissertation sought to examine the effects that the implementation of standard nine by the North American Interfraternity Conference had upon member behaviors with respect to academic achievement, alcohol consumption, career preparation, civic engagement, hazing, leadership development, sexual assault awareness/prevention, and values and…

"Catalyst" is a publication of the U.S. Department of Education's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention. This issue contains the following articles: (1) The National Study of Student Hazing Initial Findings; (2) The Social Norms Marketing Research Project--An Update; (3) Message From William…

Identity development is a critical period that extends into adulthood. Based on E. H. Erikson's (1968) theory, this study explored how identity statuses best separate heavy- from light-drinking college students. Exploring identity status can assist students in making healthier behavior choices. (Contains 3 tables.)

Social norms strategies in examining college health behavior have become popular and well-accepted. There is substantial variation in the understanding, application, and nature of social norms approaches. This paper introduces four articles on social norms research in college health that address: binge drinking prevalence; substance abuse…

Male sexual aggression toward women is a serious social problem, particularly on college campuses. In this study, college men's sexually aggressive behavior and rape myth acceptance were examined using conformity to 11 masculine norms and 2 variables previously linked to sexual aggression: problem drinking and athletic involvement. Results…