Everyone Says It's OK: Adolescents’ Perceptions of Peer, Parent, and Community Alcohol Norms, Alcohol Consumption, and Alcohol-Related Consequences

Abstract

An adolescent's perception of norms is related to her or his engagement in alcohol-related behaviors. Norms have different sources, such as parents, peers, and community. We explored how norms from different sources were simultaneously related to different alcohol-related behaviors (current drinking, drunkenness, heavy episodic drinking, driving under the influence or riding with a impaired driver, and alcohol-related nonviolent consequences) using data collected in 2004 from 6,958 adolescents from 68 communities in five states. Results revealed that parent, friend, and community norms were related to adolescents’ alcohol-related behavior, but the strength of these impacts varied across behaviors. The pattern of results varied when the analysis relied on all adolescents or just those who had consumed alcohol in the last year.

Keywords :

• alcohol use
• underage drinking
• social influence
• norms
• beliefs
• attitude
• normative behavior
• adolescents
• community-trial
• risk factor
• peer influence
• parents influence

THE AUTHORS

Eun-Young Song, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Her research interests include methodological, statistical, and Geographic Information System application issues concerning health behaviors, community and social influences on health behaviors, and evaluation of programs intended to prevent or reduce adolescent health risk behaviors.

Andrew Smiler, Ph.D. (http://andrewsmiler.wordpress.com/), is a visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University (http://wfu.edu). His sexuality research focuses on normative aspects of sexual development, such as age and perception of first kiss, first “serious” relationship, and first intercourse among 15- to 25-year-olds. He also examines definitions and enactments of masculinity. He is the author of the forthcoming “Challenging Casanova” (2012).

Kimberly G. Wagoner, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Her research interests are focused on using community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to design practice-informed interventions to prevent substance abuse among adolescents and young adults.

Mark Wolfson, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy, Wake Forest School of Medicine. He is a sociologist whose research focuses on (1) public policy on adolescent and young adult alcohol and tobacco use and (2) the implementation and impact of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug policy and prevention programs.