Verified Document

Reaction Paper On Social Norms Approach To Alcohol Substance Use In Educational Institutes Essay

¶ … Social Norms Approach to Alcohol Substance Use in Campuses University and College students have been proved to constantly overestimate the drinking of their peers. As an outcome, social norms approaches are effectual in the correction of these misunderstood norms to minimize the consumption of alcohol together with alcohol-related issues. The social norms approach to alcohol and other substance use on university and college campuses offers a model for the comprehension of human nature, which has significant consequences for health promotion and prevention. It reveals that the behavior of students is affected by wrong views of how peers reason and act. Social norms interventions concentrate on peer pressures that have more influence on personal behavior than religious, biological, cultural, and familial influences, among others. These peer pressures are founded more on what students perceive regarding their peers, believe and carry out than on their actual thoughts and actions. This particular misperception and the impact it has is the foundation for the social norms approach. Through the presentation of accurate data regarding peer group norms in a compelling manner, perceived peer influence is minimized and students are more likely to convey pre-existing beliefs and outlooks, which are health promoting (Berkowitz, 2004).

Some of the issues that are related with such abuse are destruction of property, suicide, rape, unprotected sex, and poor academic performance, among others. Whereas various students commence the consumption of alcohol and other drugs after joining college, others commence much earlier and actually just continue to develop problem behavior in the college years. Learning institutions have reacted to the issue of substance abuse through the development of counseling and health education programs and by exercising strict administrative rules. Substance addiction is frequently seen as an intricate brain disease, which could create unmanageable, unreasonable, compulsive cravings, potentially making the person to look for and use drugs. Drug abuse, particularly amidst college students that are facing new-found freedom on campus, is increasing and frequently leads to adverse behaviors at school and poor grades. Those that abuse mind-adjusting substances have a tendency of progressing through stages, which might eventually result to addiction. At the start, such individuals feel in control, however, with every passing phase, they lose more of their control. Their treatment is possible at any time, but is much simpler to…

Sources used in this document:
bibliography.

Perkins, H. W. (1997). College student misperceptions of alcohol and other drug norms among peers: Exploring causes, consequences, and implications for prevention programs. Designing alcohol and other drug prevention programs in higher education: Bringing theory into practice, 177-206.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

College Students and Alcohol Use
Words: 5292 Length: 17 Document Type: Research Proposal

Psychosocial factors, such as depression, anxiety and social support, also induce drinking. This study confirmed that social cognitive factors drove college students to report on their own drinking. Psychosocial motives drove them to do so only at 1%. Social support was the only significant psychosocial predictor. The awareness of both the positive and negative consequences of drinking was quite likely behind the willingness of college students to report on

Managing Behaviors & Teaching Social Skills Antisocial
Words: 9724 Length: 30 Document Type: Dissertation

Managing Behaviors & Teaching Social Skills Antisocial behavior in schools in on the rise and has become a concern in school systems, from both a learning perspective and from a safety perspective, as well. Previously, schools have dealt with such behaviors using punitive measures such as expulsion, or even law enforcement measures to attempt to discourage youth from behaving in an undesirable manner. These programs have had little or no effect

Bystander Reporting Behavior of Violent
Words: 3147 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

" (in Carr, 2005) Violation of privacy issues is a concern and Epstein (2002) makes the suggestion that incoming students be asked to sign a release enabling administrators to initiate actions should their behavior cause concern or seem erratic. The work of Banyard (2008) entitled: "Measurement and correlates of prosocial bystander behavior: The case of interpersonal violence" reports a study that examined the effects of gender and specific personality characteristics on

Teen Pregnancy and Parenting on
Words: 22066 Length: 75 Document Type: Research Proposal

Of these elements, they found anxiety sensitivity to be directly linked to lower levels of educational advancement. Anxiety sensitivity mainly comprises symptoms of anxiety leading to fear due to a certain belief that anxiety has dangerous somatic, psychological, or social penalties. In one study scholars found that the basic forms of fears were the playing field for a broad spectrum of fear-stimuli and they found that these basic forms of

Homelessness in the United States
Words: 10814 Length: 35 Document Type: Term Paper

" How many people are homeless? The number of homeless is difficult to ascertain because estimates vary depending on the methodology used. Numbers also vary substantially depending on whether a measurement is taken on a single night or is extrapolated to a given year. One approximation of the annual number of homeless in America is from a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which estimates between 2.3 and

Abnormal and Child Psychology -
Words: 3058 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

(the National Institute of Mental Health, 2008) Though we are able to identify some external factors, like drug use, and development problems in the womb, mainly it is the genes which determine the occurrence of this disease. We may say that it is a biological disorder. The persons suffering by this disease are largely affected by programs on TV, games, bad environments food intake and similar occurrences. It is

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now