WELCOME FRIENDS AND FAMILIES!

Welcome to OUR SPACE online, the Montclair State University Social Norms web site. We hope you will visit all the links on the left and see our posters. visit the CAPS website and look at MSU's policies about alcohol on campus. When you visit this website, you will also find our newest OUR SPACE newsletter, and be able to contact Dr. Marshall directly with your questions. SO click away, and let us know what you think! We will be updating the site often and hope to incorporate your suggestions.

This site, as well as our printed OUR SPACE has been made possible through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. To find out more about that program.... just keep reading!

Montclair State University has been recognized as having a model program called the "Social Norms Program", which works to provide a safe environment for all students, faculty and staff. The Social Norms approach promotes healthier choices. The truth is that students tend to overestimate the amount of alcohol consumed, and the amount of intoxicated behaviors exhibited, by their peers. This misperception creates a "false norm" and alters perceptions of peer expectations. Our surveys demonstrate that MSU students not only make better choices then they believe, but they are actually at a lower risk for the problems associated with high-risk drinking then many other universities.

WHAT IS THE SOCIAL NORMS APPROACH?

Alan Berkowitz and H. Wesley Perkins first proposed the social norms approach. Alan Berkowitz is an independent consultant who helps colleges, universities, public health agencies and communities design programs that address health and social justice issues. Alan Berkowitz is the Editor and founder of "The Report on Social Norms." Wes Perkins is a Professor of Sociology and has much of his professional life studying and evaluating adolescents and young adults. H. Wesley Perkins has been an evaluator of Social Norms Programs for thirty years and the author of the book The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians. Alan Berkowitz and H. Wesley have worked together and shared their knowledge of social norms and have recommended that prevention efforts generally focus on providing accurate information regarding peer-drinking behaviors. The aim of this model is to provide students with an actual depiction of attitudes and behaviors’ of their peers (actual norm) verses what they perceive their peers believe and do (perceived norm). Several studies have concluded that the misperception of alcohol consumption is a major factor influencing behavior (Berkowitz, 2003). Students consume greater quantities of alcohol in order to fit in with their perceptions of acceptable social behavior.

The objective of the Social Norms Theory is to develop community-wide electronic and/or print media campaigns that will display accurate statistical research of healthy norms for drinking and non-use of alcohol. A few examples of the media sources used by the Social Norms Theory are campaign posters with electronic media, interactive web sites, newsletters, surveys, etc. Several four year institutions such as Western Washington University (Fabiano, 2003), the University of Arizona (Gilder at el, 2001, Johannessen & Glider, 2003; Johannessen, et al, 1999), and Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Perkins & Craig, 2002, 2003a), to name a few, have implemented the Social Norms Theory into their research and have observed a decline of approx. 20% or more in high-risk drinking rates within a span of two years. After a period of four years, these universities, which have constituted the Social Norms Theory into their extensive study, have discovered a decline of over 40% in coherence to the high-risk drinking statistics.