A Student-Led Integrated Communications Campaign to Address College Alcohol Consumption through Expectancy

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis:  Binge-drinking on college campuses has become a significant public health concern. The expected outcomes of alcohol consumption have been shown to be predictive of drinking behavior, with expectations related to social behavior showing to be especially important.  Therefore, colleges and universities interested in reducing consumption may find success by focusing on these alcohol expectancies. “Less Than U Think” (LTUT) is a student-led anti binge-drinking campaign that was designed to impact student alcohol expectancies. This integrated communications campaign utilizes humor in its messaging to raise awareness to the consequences of excessive drinking. This poster reports on campaign effectiveness from two implementations of LTUT in the Spring and Fall semesters of 2014 at a liberal arts university in the northeastern United States.

Methods: 

Campaign implementation incorporated social media, on-campus events, media partnerships, and print advertisements to promote responsible alcohol consumption practices using humor rather than scare tactics. These humor-based strategies led to focused messaging concepts based on elements of surprise and disbelief. Campaign effectiveness was measured in part using a modified version of the 11-item social behavior scale of the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire-Adolescent (AEQ-A), which was administered electronically to a convenience sample of university students before and after a 6-week implementation period.

Results: 

Results indicated that the proportion of self-reported negative expectations increased significantly among students from pre-test (n= 510) to post-test (n =393) across 3 out of 11 items (27%). Within the overall sample (n= 903), negative expectancies increased post-implementation by roughly 10% on alcohol’s ability to make parties fun (χ² = 10.046, p = .002) as well as for the taste of alcohol (χ² = 10.094, p = .001).   A significant interaction was found between time of testing (pre/post), gender, and negative expectations for alcohol making people better friends (χ² = 4.36, p = .04). For male students specifically the effect was not significant, however there was a marginally significant association for female students between this component of expectancy and time of testing (pre/post), χ² =3.702, p = .054. Odds ratios indicate that the odds of having a negative expectation for alcohol making people better friends were 1.36 times higher post-implementation among females. 

Conclusions:  Implementation of LTUT at this university saw significant increases in negative expectancy towards alcohol consumption across several components of the construct, with the largest post-implementation changes seen in relation to alcohol making parties fun and taste. Female students in particular stood out as having increased negative expectancy towards alcohol making people better friends. This campaign represents a unique mass communications effort that integrates theory on human motivation to address this important health concern. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  LTUT has the potential to be refined and replicated on other college campuses; in addition, the tactics and strategies employed by the campaign suggest that the use of humor may be effective in addressing alcohol expectancy among college students.