University
and Alcohol
Heading off to university is often the start of
true independence. That is, properly leaving home to explore a new self-ruling
freedom (Dietz, 2008). However, in recent years, many students across the
country have immersed themselves in the growing ‘culture of drinking’. For
instance, upon arriving at university, alcohol is used to calm the nerves and
facilitate making friends and acquaintances in the new environment (Schulenberg
& Maggs, 2002; Szmigin et al., 2008). However, the extensive consumption of
alcohol does not finish with freshers; as drinking practices are normalised and
alcohol consumption is found to be consistently heavy - even after friends have
been made and peer groups formed (Hebden, Lyons, Goodwin, & McCreanor,
2015). In addition, these peer groups often facilitate the uptake and
involvement in further, hazardous levels of, drinking (Hebden, Lyons, Goodwin & McCreanor, 2015; Haines & Spear, 1996; Perkins, Haines & Rice,
2005).
With excessive alcohol consumption so normalised
among students, it is no surprise that it is causing problems. For instance,
research finds university students to be a group consistently ‘at risk’ for
drinking problems and alcohol abuse (Kypri, Langley & Stephenson, 2005).
However, one of the biggest concerns highlighted throughout the literature is
that a significant amount of university students regularly engage in risky
‘binge drinking’ (Johnston & White, 2003; Bergmark & Andersson, 1999). The common view of binge drinking is of
someone drinking a large amount of alcohol over a number of days. This is not
binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as consuming 4 drinks in 2 hours for
females, and 5 drinks in 2 hours for males (Drug Info Clearing, 2002).
That may be a surprise to some readers, as they may remember consuming more
alcohol than that while ‘pre-drinking’ before a night out. This is part of the
problem – students are ‘drinking to get drunk’, consuming as much as they can
before a night out because being drunk is the ‘vital’ ingredient for a good
night (Hebden, Lyons, Goodwin & McCreanor, 2015). Consequently, many
students are binge drinking without even realising that they are doing so. The
true number of student’s that binge drink has been found to vary. For instance,
62.6% of Scottish students reported ‘binge sessions’ (Delk & Meilman,
1996), whereas Wechsler, Dowdall, Maenner, Gledhill-Hoyt and Lee (1998) found
that 44% of all students binge drink at least once a fortnight. Regardless,
even if it is the lower estimate of 44%, the rate of binge drinking is far too
high among students.
The
Problem
So, what is binge drinking doing to students? By
the very least, it is facilitating a reliance on alcohol. For instance, Heather
et al., (2011) found that over a number of universities, 21% of students
classified for a diagnosable alcohol use disorder. However, students are not
recognising that their binge drinking is a problem. On the contrary, many
students believe that excessive drinking is temporary and enjoyable, and
drinking to this extent will not damage them in the long run (Penny &
Armstrong-Hallam, 2010). However, despite their beliefs, binge drinking can
cause acute and chronic problems that may still be prevalent post-graduation
(Hebden, Lyons, Goodwin & McCreanor, 2015; Huckle, Pledger &
Casswell, 2006; Casswell, Pledger & Pratap, 2002). For instance, reviewing
samples mainly made up of students, Courtney & Polich (2009) reported on
how binge drinking affects the brain. They highlighted that binge drinking has been shown to cause auditory and verbal memory deficits (Nichols & Martin, 1997),
problems with executive planning (Hartley, Elsabagh & File, 2004), episodic
memory (Hartley et al., 2004), spatial working memory (Weissenborn & Duka,
2003) and inhibitory control (frontal lobe) (Townshend & Duka, 2005).
Moreover, binge drinking has been linked to mental health problems – such as
depression and anxiety – as well as certain types of cancer (Weitzman, 2004;
Gupta, Wang, Holly & Bracci, 2010). It is clear that binge drinking at
university can cause problems further down the line, despite what some students
think. However, the short-term effects of binge drinking can be just as
serious. For instance, binge drinking during pre-drinks on a Saturday night may
lead you to get alcohol poisoning, or blackout and choke on your own vomit
(Hingson & White, 2013). In addition, Wechsler and Nelson (2001) found that
students that had binged 3 times in a 2-week time period were 48% more likely
to have had 5 or more alcohol related problems, which include unplanned sex
and driving drunk (see the table below to view all the alcohol related
problems).
It is quite staggering to see how damaging binge
drinking is, as well as the prevalence of binge drinking in students. As a
consequence, we aimed to change, or at least positively influence, the drinking
habits of students at The University of Warwick.
What
We Did
Initially we wanted to produce a video; however, we
were very wary of inadvertently promoting alcohol consumption. In addition, we
felt that we could only produce an ‘amateur’ video (we’re poor filmers/editors
to be truthful!) and we wanted our message to be taken as seriously as
possible. Thus, we created three posters – each with a different aim – to target
binge drinking. We hoped to inform students of what constitutes a ‘binge’, the
negative effects of binge drinking, and what students could do to prevent binge
drinking.
 |
| Poster A |
 |
| Poster B |
 |
| Poster C |
In addition, our posters contained a number of different techniques to influence students to alter their drinking habits, for instance:
The
Fear Tactic:
The ‘fear tactic’ has often been used in health
advertising to promote behaviour change. This tactic aims to link an action or
behaviour to an undesirable outcome, which thus influences a change in
behaviour to prevent such an outcome. Witte and Allen (2000) conducted a large
meta-analysis to assess whether fear tactics do actually influence behaviour.
They found that fear appeals are effective when they target a significant, and
relevant, threat. In addition, the results demonstrated that high-threat fear campaigns
are significantly more likely to have a persuasive effect.
For these reasons, we chose to use the fear tactic
for one of our posters (poster B), as we know that the issue of binge drinking is both a
significant and relevant threat. That is, all students know that drinking is a
big part of university life, and most students have had a night where they have
perhaps had one drink too many. Thus, we could ensure to a certain degree that
our poster would be somewhat effective in making people think about how much
they were drinking. In addition, due to the results of the meta-analysis
conducted by Witte and Allen (2000) we decided to include some of the most
drastic consequences of binge drinking. That is, we listed some of the most
serious ‘drinking related consequences’ such as ‘criminal record’ and ‘alcohol
poisoning’ rather than ‘miss a lecture’. Furthermore, we made sure that the
consequences were the only things in red text on the poster, as the colour red
is associated with danger and should therefore unconsciously increase levels of
threat (Elliot & Maier, 2007). By designing the poster to maximise the
levels of fear, we hope some members of our target audience choose to act upon
the fear of binge drinking consequences, and drink responsibly.
“Thinking, fast and slow”
Kahneman (2011) outlined two separate systems for
decision making – System 1 and System 2. System 1 thinking is fast and
automatic, requiring little attention. On the other hand, System 2 thinking is
slow and effortful, and engagement in such thinking requires energy and
attention. We designed our posters very specifically to utilise Kahneman’s
(2011) ‘System 1 and System 2’ to get the best persuasive results. For
instance, two of our posters were bold and clear, and the only writing on the
posters aimed to directly address the problem. We did this because it would
appeal to people that did not want to use too much ‘mental energy’, as the
poster could be processed quickly and without any real effort. For poster A, we
aimed for people to clearly see and quickly process exactly what constitutes
binge drinking. Hopefully, the next time a member of our audience went ‘out’,
alcohol would act as a cue for memory of the poster, leading to careful
consideration of alcohol consumption. For poster B, we wanted to people to be
able to quickly take in the message on the poster, but also we hoped that the
fear tactics aforementioned would then facilitate System 2 thinking, which
would lead to a more conscious and effortful encoding of our message. With more
conscious processing, we hope that our message is taken seriously and leads to
a degree of positive behaviour change.
Poster C was slightly different. We packed it full
of information, making it more visually crowded and difficult to processes
using System 1 thinking. Thus, in order for somebody to engage with the poster,
they would have to do so consciously and effortfully. However, we made sure to
include an extensive list of harmful binge drinking consequences. This was done
to tap into a System 1 type persuasive method called the ‘peripheral route’.
The peripheral route occurs when motivation is relatively low and so attitudes
are determined by positive cues (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Often, people are
not so motivated to read a long list, and they thus use the number of items in
the list to determine the strength of the argument (Olson & Mathias
Thjømøe, 2003). Consequently, we hoped that this poster would encourage people
to view the long list of consequences as a persuasive reason to watch their
drinking - as binging must be harmful if there are so many negative consequences! In
addition, because we hoped people were initially drawn into effortful system 2
thinking, and persuaded that binge drinking is bad through the peripheral
route, we listed ways in which our audience can prevent binge drinking (‘spread
your drinks out’). With heightened engagement and persuasion against binge
drinking, we again hope that people took this onboard for the future, and
perhaps used some of our suggestions to drink safely and responsibly.
Language and Commitment
On all of our posters, we specifically highlighted
the word ‘you’. We did this because interpersonal engagement is an important
tool to relate to readers and draw them in (Hyland, 2008). Moreover, specifically
using the word ‘you’ moves the responsibility of the issue onto the audience,
which makes them assess whether they are behaving negatively and what they can
do to change. Consequently, we hope that the audience were able to internalise
the message and relate it to themselves, promoting self-analysis of drinking
habits and thus potential behaviour change. In addition, we used the technique
of rhetorical questioning for all of the posters - for instance “are you in the
44% of students who binge drink?”. We used this technique because it has been
found to facilitate persuasiveness when paired with a strong argument (Petty,
Cacioppo & Heesacker, 1981); while again encouraging the audience to
reflect and review the relevance of the question and overall message. Thus, we
hope that our audience internalised both the poster, and the argument -
promoting a potential change in their behaviour.
In the bottom right hand corner of posters A and B,
we put a QR code. This code either led to the NHS webpage on binge drinking and
its consequences, or the drinkaware webpage with questionnaires to determine
whether you have a problem, as well as how and where to get support. We hope
that with the personal involvement of the poster, our audience would be
intrigued by the QR codes ‘directed at them’. By scanning the code, members of
our audience would take a further ‘commitment step', which significantly
increases the likelihood that they will change their behaviour, as they will
feel the need to be consistent with their commitment (Cialdini, 2007). In
addition, the use of the NHS and drinkaware websites was key, as they are both
‘credible sources’ - which increases the extent to which people believe and
follow recommendations (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).
Did we succeed?
The culture of drinking at university is a problem,
and binge drinking is at the heart of it. The main intent for our behaviour
change campaign was to persuade people to stop and think about their drinking.
Not to stop drinking altogether, but to be more responsible with their drinking
habits and nights out. It is not possible to precisely measure how many people
saw our campaign, but given the areas we placed our posters, we hope that a
good proportion of the thousands of students on campus took something positive
from the posters. Even if just one student positively changed their behaviour
and avoided some of the irreparable consequences of binge drinking, we consider
this campaign to be successful.
Robbie Chandler & Lauren Milbourne
References
Bergmark, K. H., & Andersson, T. (1999). The development of
advanced drinking habits in adolescence – a longitudinal study. Substance Use and
Misuse, 34, 171-194.
Casswell, S., Pledger, M., & Pratap, S. (2002). Trajectories
of drinking from 18 to 26 years: Identification and prediction. Addiction, 97, 1427-1437.
Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of
persuasion, 173-174. New York: Collins.
Courtney, K. E., & Polich, J. (2009). Binge drinking in young
adults: Data, definitions, and determinants. Psychological
bulletin, 135, 142.
Delk, E. W., & Meilman, P. W. (1996) Alcohol use among college
students in Scotland compared with norms from the United States. Journal of American
College Health, 44, 274–281.
Dietz, C. M. (2008). Development of binge drinking behavior in
college students: A developmental analysis. Graduate Journal of
Counseling Psychology, 1, 86-96.
Drug Info Clearing. (2002). The facts about binge
drinking. Retrieved from: http://nceta.flinders.edu.au/files/4512/5004/2169/Binge_drinking.pdf on 15/04/2018.
Elliot, A. J., & Maier, M. A. (2007). Color and psychological
functioning. Current
directions in psychological science, 16, 250-254.
Gupta, S., Wang, F., Holly, E. A., & Bracci, P. M. (2010).
Risk of pancreatic cancer by alcohol dose, duration, and pattern of
consumption, including binge drinking: a population-based study. Cancer Causes &
Control, 21, 1047-1059.
Haines, M., & Spear, S. F. (1996). Changing the perception of
the norm: A strategy to decrease binge drinking among college students. Journal of American
College Health, 45, 134-140.
Hartley, D., E, Elsabagh, S., File S., E. (2004). Binge drinking
and sex: Effects on mood and cognitive function in healthy young volunteers. Pharmacology,
Biochemistry and Behavior, 611–619.
Heather, N., Partington, S., Partington, E., Longstaff, F.,
Allsop, S., Jankowski, M., Wareham, H., & St Clair Gibson, A. (2011).
Alcohol use disorders and hazardous drinking among undergraduates at English
universities. Alcohol
and alcoholism, 46, 270-277.
Hebden, R., Lyons, A. C., Goodwin, I., & McCreanor, T. (2015).
"When you add alcohol, it gets that much better": University
students, alcohol consumption, and online drinking cultures. Journal of Drug
Issues, 45, 214-226.
Hingson, R. W., & White, A. (2013). Trends in extreme binge
drinking among US high school seniors. JAMA
pediatrics, 167, 996-998.
Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1951). The influence of source
credibility on communication effectiveness. Public opinion
quarterly, 15, 635-650.
Hyland, K. (2008). Persuasion, interaction and the construction of
knowledge: Representing self and others in research writing. International Journal
of English Studies, 8, 1-23.
Johnston, K. L., & White, K. M. (2003). Binge-drinking: A test
of the role of group norms in the theory of planned behaviour. Psychology and
Health, 18, 63-77.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and
slow. Macmillan.
Kypri, K., Langley, J., & Stephenson, S. (2005).
Episode-centred analysis of drinking to intoxication in university students. Alcohol and
Alcoholism, 40, 447-452.
Nichols, J. M., Martin, F. (1997). The effect of lorazepam on
long-term verbal recall in heavy and light social drinkers. Alcohol, 455–461.
Olson, E. L., & Mathias Thjømøe, H. (2003). The effects of
peripheral exposure to information on brand preference. European Journal of
Marketing, 37, 243-255.
Penny, G., & Armstrong-Hallam, S. (2010). A
multi-level analysis of student alcohol (mis) use and its implications for
policy and prevention strategies within universities, cognate educational
establishments and the wider community. Student Choices and Alcohol
Matters (SCAM), 1-134.
Perkins, H., Haines, M. P., & Rice, R. (2005). Misperceiving
the college drinking norm and related problems: A nationwide study of exposure
to prevention information, perceived norms, and student alcohol misuse. Journal of Studies on
Alcohol, 66, 470-478.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration
likelihood model of persuasion. In Communication and
persuasion, 1-24.
Springer New York.
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Heesacker, M. (1981). Effects
of rhetorical questions on persuasion: A cognitive response analysis. Journal of
personality and social psychology, 40, 432.
Schulenberg, J. E., & Maggs, J. L. (2002). A developmental
perspective on alcohol use and heavy drinking during adolescence and the
transition to young adulthood. Journal of Studies on
Alcohol, 14, 54-70.
Szmigin, I., Griffin, C., Mistral, W., Bengryhowell, A., Weale,
L., & Hackley, C. (2008). Re-framing "binge drinking" as
calculated hedonism: Empirical evidence from the UK. International Journal
of Drug Policy, 19, 359-366.
Townshend, J. M., Duka, T. (2005). Binge drinking, cognitive
performance and mood in a population of young social drinkers. Alcoholism: Clinical
and Experimental Research, 317–325.
Wechsler, H., Dowdall, G. W., Maenner, G., Gledhill-Hoyt, J. and
Lee, H. (1998) Changes in binge drinking and related problems among American
college students between 1993 and 1997. Journal of the
American College of Health, 47, 57–68.
Wechsler, H., & Nelson, T. F. (2001). Binge drinking and the
American college students: What's five drinks? Psychology of Addictive
Behaviors, 15, 287.
Weissenborn, R., & Duka, T. (2003). Acute alcohol effects on
cognitive function in social drinkers: Their relationship to drinking habits. Psychopharmacology, 306–312.
Weitzman, E. R. (2004). Poor mental health, depression, and
associations with alcohol consumption, harm, and abuse in a national sample of
young adults in college. The Journal of
nervous and mental disease, 192, 269-277.
Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals:
Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health, Education and
Behaviour, 27, 591-615.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.