Focus on the Positives: Using Social Norms in Prevention
All of us are strongly influenced by group norms, and that is especially true for adolescents. Young people are strongly influenced by the behaviors and attitudes they perceive their peers to have. This works well when it comes to youth learning how to interact with and behave around others, but it can have negative outcomes when their perceptions do not match reality. A great example of this is youth perception of peer substance use.
Youth tend to overestimate how many of their peers are using substances. There are a few factors that play into these perceptions, but two of the prominent ones include entertainment and marketing. Most media shows teens as being rebellious kids who smoke, drink, and party all day. This is not an accurate representation of youth culture, but this portrayal can be found in real life with news coverage and well-intentioned commercials focused on teens making unhealthy choices. Both of these sources tell youth that their peers are using substances which youth then take to mean that everyone is using substances. Data shows that that is not true, but this misperception has a stronger influence on youth than data does. One way to change how youth perceive group norms is to accurately represent group norms.
The social norms approach to prevention highlights the actual norms while dispelling myths that come from perceived norms. Prevention education and marketing used to focus on the behavior itself. For example, “10% of teens drink alcohol.” This is just sharing a piece of data to bring awareness to an issue; however, the focus on the negative can cause people to miss the positive and create a norm in their minds that does not exist. The social norms approach to this statement would be, “90% of teens do not drink alcohol.” These messages share the same information, but the focus of each message gives the reader a different takeaway. The first message reinforces the perception teens have that their peers are drinking, and the second message tells teens that most of their peers are not drinking. Promoting the positive social norm that most teens do not drink reduces the amount of teens drinking because teens want to be part of the majority.
Focusing on positive social norms is becoming the main tactic used in prevention. Changing the narrative to show that most people are making healthy choices, especially when talking to students, can help reduce the amount of people willing to try substances. Check out the links below for some examples on what a social norms campaign can look like.
Resources
The Importance of Social Norms in Substance Use Prevention
The Social Norms Approach to Tackling Substance Misuse
Social Norms Message Creation Guide
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