Partying Before the Party Gets Started: The Effects of Descriptive Norms on Pregaming Behavior

Abstract

Pregaming (consuming several alcoholic drinks prior to going to a bar or party) has become a common practice on many college campuses. We propose that students often rely on descriptive norms when making decisions about pregaming. In Study 1, we provided undergraduate students with norm information indicating that relatively few college students regularly engage in pregaming behavior. Female students receiving this information engaged in pregaming significantly less often the following week than female students who received no norm information. The rate of pregaming among male students was not affected by the norm information. The effect of norm information on pregaming was replicated in Study 2 using only female students. In addition, providing information about gender-specific norms had a greater impact on pregaming behavior than presenting norm data for the general student body only. The findings indicate that descriptive norms play an important role in pregaming behavior and suggest avenues for intervention programs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Data from Study 1 were presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, May 2009, San Francisco, CA. We thank Colleen Budenholzer and Stephanie Claudatos for their help with the data collection.

Notes

¹The additional items on the questionnaire for both studies included questions asking about general demographic data and questions asking about perceptions of alcohol consumption generally among students.

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

²We compared the two conditions on their responses to the Week 1 questionnaire items. The control condition (M = 2.47) and norm condition (M = 2.58) did not differ in the number of pregaming drinks they reported consuming, F(1, 110) = .06, p = .81. Compared to the control condition, norm condition participants tended to report lower perceptions for the number of drinks their friends (M = 4.02 vs. 4.30) and the average student (M = 3.94 vs. 4.31) consumed when pregaming, but these differences fell short of statistical significance, F(1, 96) = .35, p = .55, and F(1, 104) = 2.48, p = .12, respectively.

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.