MORE THAN a third of University undergraduates will probably leave you alone with a stranger if you are drunk. According to the "Hoo Knew" campaign, that kind of statistic is supposed to encourage safe behavior because the inverse number of students (two-thirds here) usually makes the safe decision. That may work in theory. But when the statistics show so many students still make unsafe decisions, the campaign does not send an effective message.
The social norms campaign,sponsored by the University's Office of Health Promotion, tries to encourage good decisions by showing that the majority of students make safe choices -- an idea that is the basis for "social norms" theory. Social norms theory attempts to "correct negative misconceptions" by showing that the "demonstrable norm" tends to be safe and healthy choices. Caitlin Knotts, the Social Norms Marketer with the Office of Health Promotion, said in an interview that this technique is a "refreshing and new way" to promote healthy behaviors.
"Hoo Knew" uses statistics from the annual Health Promotion survey, administered since 1999 to a random sample of University undergraduates, and uses them to encourage students to make healthy decisions.
Used properly this social norms marketing method could be effective at the University and other colleges to promote safe behavior.
At the University, the statistics are often not being used properly. As a result, no improvements have been made in several key areas.
One section of the Health Promotions survey asks how much first-year students think other students drink, and then asks how much they actually do. The perceptions of first year students are often wrong because, as Knotts pointed out, people tend to "overestimate the positive and underestimate the negative." One would think publicizing the misconception would encourage first year students to drink less.
On the contrary, since those facts are public, the numbers have yet tochange significantly. The number of students participating in various levels of drinking has wavered throughout the years of the survey and the Hoo Knew campaign. According to Knotts, there has been an increase in abstinence from alcohol. The increase has only been 2.4 percent, and the numbers fluctuate from year to year.
The part of the survey that questions "protective" behaviors in students has seen no improvement and presents dismal statistics. Publicizing that two-thirds of students won't leave their drunk friends with a stranger is hardly encouraging. Because so many students are making the "unsafe" choice, students do not instantly realize that the popular choice is to be safe. 66.5 percent of students will usually take precautions not to inconvenience their non-drinking peers. Therefore another third of the students have no qualms with vomiting on one friend's shoes, keeping another friend out all night, or any other number of "inconveniences" a drunk person can inflict upon his friends.
In the evaluation of survey results, these kinds of statistics aren't inspiring students to make healthy and safe decisions.
Over the seven years since the survey began, first year students participation in most of the "protective" drinking behaviors has changed little, and usually negatively. More students are encouraging their friends to drink more, allowing their drunk friends to get behind the wheel, and fewer are intervening to keep a drunk friend from harming other people. These are all quantitative signs that this campaign is not working.
One success "Hoo Knew" claims to have encouraged is that all of the negative consequences from drinking (like hangovers) being taken advantage of sexually, or getting in trouble with the police have decreased over the years. Knotts calls this "really good news." Of course it is good news that the negative aspects of drinking are not happening as much to students.
Most of the other issues addressed by Hoo Knew, however, have not changed. It is not likely that the campaign was responsible for the positive changes but could not elicit them elsewhere. It is also no achievement when students have no hangovers the next morning but probably drove home drunk or endangered their peers in some other way the night before.
The campaign against unhealthy behaviors should continue; If the good statistics are further publicized, they can make a positive impact. If a statistic is not very high, there needs to be other ways to encourage healthy behavior. For a lot of people, knowing the negative consequences of their actions often convinces them to at least think twice about a bad decision, and often not make it at all.
Though technically the majority of students are safe, too many students are still endangering themselves and peers. Congratulations are in order for safe and responsible students and any of the successes of Hoo Knew's, but there are certainly still efforts to be made.
Ashlee Wilkins's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at awilkins@cavalierdaily.com.