How can social norms campaigns be used to support environmental strategies?
Social norms campaigns have recently become well known and more widely used. These
campaigns use marketing techniques like posters and bumper stickers to provide more accurate
information about how much or how little students drink—emphasizing that heavy drinking is not
the norm for students on the particular campus. Research on social norms campaigns is decidedly
mixed. Some success has been claimed, but an evaluation of social norms campaigns on 37
campuses found no effects on heavy drinking or alcohol-related problems (Wechsler et al., 2003b).
Social norms campaigns may be best suited for generating public for changing the overall drinking
environment around campuses. Students, college administrators and business owners may resist
policy changes that reduce availability of alcohol. However, broader recognition that most
students don't drink or only drink moderately, and that heavy drinking is causing serious campus
problems, can help bring about support for needed policy changes.
What about programs that educate students and raise their awareness of alcohol