Effects of induced compliance on alcohol use: Evaluation of a school-based intervention among Norwegian 8th graders

Abstract

This study evaluated an alcohol intervention among Norwegian 8th graders. Participants competed class wise in producing the best 3-minutes alcohol prevention video aimed at convincing 7th graders not to start drinking. Consistent with the induced compliance approach to attitude change, involvement in producing the video was expected to influence the 8th graders' own attitudes and behavior. Furthermore, the 8th graders carried out a survey of alcohol use at their own school, and were provided feedback on the results from their own as well as from other schools. The aim was to reduce the overestimation of alcohol use common among adolescents at this age and thereby change both social norms related to drinking alcohol and reducing drinking. Questionnaires were administered at baseline and four months later. The questionnaire included nine scales of known social psychological alcohol use correlates which explained as much as 54.6% and 58.6% of the variance in alcohol use at T1 and T2, respectively. The intervention group (n = 586) had significantly lower increase in alcohol use compared to the comparison group (n = 392) after controlling for covariates. A multilevel mediation analysis showed that changes in four of the covariates (Descriptive norms, AEQ-A social scale, Attitudes, and Anticipated regrets) significantly predicted change in alcohol use at the within level and two of the covariates (Descriptive norms and Perceived behavioral control) at the between level. No significant mediation effects were, however, revealed.

Keywords::

• alcohol prevention
• induced compliance
• fallacy beliefs
• adolescents
• evaluation

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Liv Skancke Ruud and Pål Winnæs in administering the intervention and the survey, and we wish to express our gratitude to the reviewers for their insightful comments. This research was supported in part by a grant from The Norwegian Directorate of Health. The authors have no conflicting interests in conducting and reporting this research, which was carried out in accordance with universal ethical principles. Informed consent was obtained from the participants.