Perceived Drinking Norms, Attention to Social Comparison Information, and Alcohol Use among College Students

Numerous studies indicate that normative campus drinking practices are important in determining college undergraduates’ use and abuse of alcohol. The purpose of this paper was to extend this literature by assessing the extent to which a dispositional susceptibility to peer influence, measured using the Attention to Social Comparison Information subscale (Lennox & Wolfe, 1984), moderates this relationships. Consistent with prior research, the perception that alcohol use and abuse are common campus activities was associated with high levels of drinking across students. Attention to social comparison information also had a direct positive effect on alcohol consumption among the undergraduates surveyed. Moreover, as we predicted, students high in attention to social comparison information who believed other individuals on campus to be frequent and heavy users of alcohol reported the highest levels of drinking. These findings are interpreted with reference to the utility of both information- and resistance-based alcohol-prevention strategies.