The Role of Context-Specific Norms and Group Size in Alcohol Consumption and Compliance Drinking During Natural Drinking Events

Abstract

We examined how group size and context-specific drinking norms corresponded to alcohol consumption and compliance with drinking offers using experience sampling methods. For 30 days, 397 college students reported daily on their alcohol consumption and social-context during natural social drinking events. Larger groups corresponded with greater alcohol consumption, but only when context-specific norms were high. Furthermore, larger groups increased compliance with drinking offers when norms were high but decreased compliance with drinking offers when norms were low. Thus, subtle features of the social-context may influence not only overall consumption behavior but also compliance with more overt forms of social influence.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was funded by an institutional grant, 5P60-AA003510, from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The first author was supported during the production of this article by NIAAA grant 5-T32-AA07290-28.

Notes

Note. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) are presented on the diagonal. Gender is effects coded (−1 = male, 1 = female). This summary information is based on person aggregated reports of social drinking events (N = 394).

*p ≤ .001.

Note. Degrees of freedom are approximately 392. Cohen's ds are computed from t values and approximate dfs.

*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .001.