ࡱ> 8:77 "bjbjUU "*7|7|l,  ,C8NNNNNNN    NNNNN bNN bbbN NN bN bb :^ , N, ]Em,X 0C Rb b,,State of Social Norms - Koreen Johannessen A shortened version of this article appeared in the Report on the Norms entitled, Questions and Challenges Ahead, The Report on the Norms, Vol 3, Issue 9, PaperClip Communications, June, 2004. For a decade the University of Arizona has been using social norms strategies to reduce heavy and high-risk student drinking, improve campus safety and enhance UAs ability to be a better neighbor and citizen of Tucson. Communicating student behavioral and attitudinal norms is the key component in our work and central to UAs three pronged prevention (1) social norms marketing, 2) moderation skills training and 3) environmental management) plan. As a practionner, trainer and evaluator of social norms, Ive identified several emerging issues and challenges for the future of social norms theory, research and practical application. Too few social scientists committed to conducting good social norms research. This emerging issue affects all other aspects of the state of the field. Without a strong theoretical base and good research study design it is difficult to increase our knowledge or demonstrate the efficacy of social norms as a valid prevention strategy. How much is enough? We have not identified the dosage level of social norms marketing messages necessary to influence the misperceptions (how many times should we publish, or announce the norm). Misperception correction. We need to know if correcting misperception is always necessary for a change in behavior and if so at what level. Accurate measures for changes in perception. Maybe misperception change is always necessary for success but we lack an adequate measurement to document change. For example, should we standardize misperception questions to enhance our ability to compare apples to apples across programs? Does social norms work better for some groups than others? We need to identify which groups may benefit most. The sorority specific social norms program at UA has shown significant reductions for sorority women in high risk drinking, and increases in protective behaviors during a period of time when the general social norms campaign showed very little change for all women. Can social norms be used for other public health or behavioral issues? There are already some examples of practionners using the norms to grow positive behavior (for example, smoking prevention, decreasing cheating on your taxes) when there is a discrepancy between misperception and the norm. Much more research will be needed to uncover the potential uses of social norms, a strategy based on social learning theory. Control groups? It is difficult to identify a true control group for social norms marketing since all students on campus or all students in the target population receive the intervention. At UA we have been rejected by schools in our region that were most comparable to UA because the potential control school would be too easy to identify. Fear that negative comparisons that would impact funding, and school image could be made for political gain. Standardized measures of success. There is little agreement that harm reduction is an appropriate goal in substance abuse prevention and even if we agreed that it is we have not identified a set of evaluation indicators that could be used from setting to setting that would indicate that harm reduction has occurred. We also talk about change in the public conversation as an intermediary outcome but have not identified the indicators that would tell us a change in the public conversation has been achieved. Credibility may be a bigger factor than we anticipated. Social norms marketing sponsorship, and credibility of source information can have a significant influence on the effort. The target populations perception of the sponsoring agency as a credible source of information can enhance or detract from believability of a social norms intervention. Agency motivation do they have my best interests at heart or are they trying to protect their own interests are another important influence. Central mission vs. supporting goal. Related to this last issue is the fact that many agencies, for example, schools, colleges and universities, are in the business of education not public health; enhanced health and safety is not a priority but instead a supporting goal... nice to have but not central to the mission. Large institutions are more like small cities with multiple competing agendas. Organizing key stakeholders to unite behind a public health issue such as heavy drinking is formidable and often does not happen until a crisis threatens the institution and the organizations attorney voices concern. Is there a problem or not? Combining social norms turning up the volume on the norms and environmental management strategies which often begin with turning up the volume on the problem can make the public relations folks at any institution very uncomfortable. Social norms practionners need to learn how to talk about the norms to different audiences. Adequacy of staffing and staff training. The elephant in the living room is that those who are charged with conducting a social norms campaign typically do not have adequate training in social norms theory, or practice. Staff members are also often new hires with little political clout or public health experience and therefore poorly positioned to get the job done. Programs are notoriously under-funded for the kind of impact that is expected. Lack of longitudinal studies. Fundable projects typically have a shelf life of two to three years. This makes it impossible to follow the progress of individuals or cohorts over time. Ability to collect social norms data. Because it is necessary to collect sensitive data for both norms message development and evaluation - including data on some illegal activities institutional internal review boards (IRBs) and governing bodies can sometimes have a negative influence on data collection efforts. New techniques such as web-based surveying may not be acceptable. Policies about how this data can be used and who manages the data often need to be resolved before a social norms strategy can be implemented. This is especially true when survey questions and techniques are subject to new IRB standards and new committee members each year. Confusion over the social norms approach. Political attacks on social norms theory, practice and efficacy - conducted in large part thus far through the media -have impeded the progress of social norms research and made it difficult for institutions to support what appears to be a controversial strategy. Ordinarily scientific knowledge is shared through scholarly publications - not press releases. These very public challenges and resulting public debates about the efficacy of social norms over environmental management have led to a widespread belief among key stakeholders and some substance abuse prevention practionners that there is either 1) no scientific data to support the social norms strategy, or 2) social norms is a strategy that has been co-opted by the alcohol industry, or 3) social norms is incompatible with other environmental and individually oriented strategies. To examine the research for yourself I recommend the following three sources; a current review of the social norms literature has been written by Alan Berkowitz and can be found at < HYPERLINK "http://www.edc.org/hec" www.edc.org/hec>; The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse, edited by Wes Perkins and the Report on Social Norms, published by PaperClip Communications. Social norms theory and research has a long way to go but there is good science behind this strategy and good reason to make the journey. pqxy  > 2 l P`3G%kJo!!5!6!7!F!G!"0JjU jU5\CJCJ/pq  2 PkJY Z " & F" 1h/ =!"#$%DyK www.edc.org/hecyK .http://www.edc.org/hec iL@L Normal+CJ KH OJQJ\^J_HaJ mH sH tH <A@< Default Paragraph Font*B@* Body TextCJ.U@. 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