A recent investigation conducted by researchers at the Pennsylvania State University found that anti-drinking social campaigns have no impact on the drinking behavior of college students. Instead, college students are mostly influenced by their friends and colleagues when it comes to their drinking behavior and alcoholic drinks consumption.

The new report is entitled "Evaluating the Believability and Effectiveness of the Social Norms Message" and is due to be published in the Health Communication Journal. The article on how social campaigns can influence binge and heavy drinking among college students is signed by Lindsey Polonec, graduate student in Communications, Dr. Major and L. Erwin Atwood, research associate at the Jimirro Center, both of them from the Pennsylvania State University.

The study involved 277 college students, out of which 73% said that drinking an average of 4 or 5 drinks when partying is common and they also reported that their friends and colleagues would drink more than that amount of alcoholic drinks. An individual with binge drinking behavior is usually a person who consumes 4 or 5 drinks at one sitting.

"Disbelief in the campaign message may have resulted from the behavior observed by students among their friends and acquaintances, which contrasted with the '0-4 message'. Also, some students may discount social norms campaigns as an attempt by university administrators to control their behavior," stated co-researcher Dr. Ann Major, Professor of Communications and Director of the Jimirro Center for the Study of Media Influence at Penn State.

The team involved in the study also found that male college students were not at all concerned about their binge or heavy drinking behavior and stated that there is not the case for any measures to be taken in that concern. On the other hand, female college students were more perceptive at the urge to temperate their drinking behavior.

"Women were the largest group of students who did think about the binge-drinking problem and expressed concern about getting into trouble with police and more likely to believe in the effectiveness of the social norms information campaigns. But it may be likely that men have greater social acceptance of heavy drinking and affiliated behaviors," wrote the Penn State researchers.

The conclusion of the study was that social campaigns have little or no effect on teenagers, especially on college students who have large groups of friends and are rather nonconformist when it comes to having to adapt themselves to social constrains. They do not like anything to be imposed on them by the state and only the ideas of their groups are the ones they must adopt.

"The study emphasizes the complex and social nature of human interaction. Social norms messages proved to be ineffective among target hard-core drinkers because they have little concern for what others think and do. Educators may need to consider multiple approaches to alcohol education with messages that are designed to target the specific needs of student groups and to acknowledge the power of their social networks," stated Dr. Major.