Students drink less after learning how much alcohol their peers really consume

College students given a reality check on how much other students drink may be surprised to learn that their campus isn’t such a party scene.

In the first study to actually measure the breath-alcohol concentrations of students returning to their residences at night, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that 2 out of 3 had nothing to drink on weekend nights. And on weeknights, about 85% did not drink.

Using these 1997 findings, the researchers launched an intensive effort to inform students of the “2 out of 3” message. The purpose of this so-called “social norms” program was to correct the misconception that college students are heavy drinkers.

“People behave according to what they think is typical,” says Robert D. Foss, senior scientist at the university’s Highway Safety Research Center and lead author of the study. “If you keep seeing and hearing that most students don’t drink on any given night -- even on weekends -- you begin to look around more carefully and recognize it’s true. That realization lowers implicit pressures to drink.”

To test the effect of educating the students about the more accurate “social norm” of moderate drinking, the researchers repeated the breath-alcohol testing in 1999 and 2002 with more than 4,000 students. By 2002, 91% were aware of the 2 out of 3 message, and the proportion of students with detectable alcohol on their breath when randomly tested had declined by 15%.

The study was presented at the sixth annual National Conference on the Social Norms Model in Boston last summer and is now being published.

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Dianne Partie Lange