Effects of normative feedback for drinkers who consume less than the norm: Dodging the boomerang.

Abstract

A number of alcohol interventions designed for college students attempt to correct exaggerated perceptions of alcohol use on college campuses through the use of personalized normative feedback. Personalized normative feedback has been shown effective in reducing drinking both as a stand-alone intervention and as a part of a multi-component intervention. Typically, this feedback is targeted to heavier drinkers, in order to create a discrepancy between their personal beliefs and behavior and the actual lower levels of use on campus. However, little is known about how this form of normative feedback might affect lighter drinkers who learn that they are drinking less than the typical student at their school. The risk is a potential boomerang effect, or an increase in drinking among lighter drinkers receiving personalized feedback. The current study examined four samples from three geographic locations, two employing computer delivered personalized normative feedback alone and two delivering personalized feedback in the context of a brief motivational intervention. We found no evidence for a boomerang effect among lighter drinkers receiving personalized normative feedback in any of the four samples. These findings help to assuage fears of increasing drinking among lighter drinkers through widespread implementation of normative interventions for college students in the absence of screening for current drinking status.

Interventions to reduce college student drinking: State of the evidence for mechanisms of behavior change

“…Similar to Schultz et al (2007), the iatrogenic effects may reflect that many students received feedback that they were below the norm for drinking to cope (cf. Prince, Reid, Carey, & Neighbors, 2014). Conversely, Whiteside targeted heavy drinking anxious and depressed students.…”

Descriptive norms and expectancies as mediators of a brief motivational intervention for mandated college students receiving stepped care for alcohol use.

“…If not addressed, norms appear to be stable and resistant to change and there is little evidence to suggest that providing normative data information for lower risk drinkers will result in an increase in normative perception or personal drinking (Prince, Reid, Carey, & Neighbors, 2014). The verdict on the utility of expectancies is somewhat less definitive.…”

Personality traits and energy conservation

“…While Ayres et al (2012) illustrated that this type of message may not eliminate the boomerang effect among its experiment with 35,000 participants who were provided normative feedback. More interestingly, a study examined the efficacy of normative feedback with descriptive norm only and multi-component normative feedback which invoked an injunctive norm in the college student drinking context, but neither of them was observed a boomerang effect among lighter drinkers (Prince et al, 2014). Other studies in the household energy conservation behavior domain showed being assigned to different injunctive norm categories does not significantly change the treatment effect for households near the category cutoffs (Allcott, 2011).…”