Exposing Pluralistic Ignorance to Reduce Alcohol Use Among College Students1
Abstract
Research has shown that students' beliefs about alcohol use are characterized by pluralistic ignorance: The majority of students believe that their peers are uniformly more comfortable with campus alcohol practices than they are. The present study examines the effects of educating students about pluralistic ignorance on their drinking behavior. Entering students (freshmen) participated in either a peer‐oriented discussion, which focused on pluralistic ignorance, or an individual‐oriented discussion, which focused on decision making in a drinking situation. Four to 6 months later, students in the peer‐oriented condition reported drinking significantly less than did students in the individual‐oriented condition. Additional results suggest that the peer‐oriented discussion reduced the prescriptive strength of the drinking norm. The implications of these results for models of social influence and for the representation of peer opinion are discussed.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the study of Schroeder and Prentice (1998), information on the subject diminished alcohol consumption among college students.
“in the study of Schroeder and Prentice (1998), information on the subject diminished the alcohol consumption among college students.”
From Pluralistic ignorance in the bystander effect: informational dynamics of unresponsive witnesses in situations calling for intervention (2014) · cites this paper as Schroeder and Prentice (1998)
Cites
A brief version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale
Leary, M. R. (1983) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167283093007 · Cited by 2,178 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and the Workplace
Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1111/j.1529-1006.2004.00018.x · Cited by 1,865 · see citing works
Descriptive and injunctive norms in college drinking: a meta-analytic integration.
Borsari, B., & Carey, K. B. (2003) · Journal of Studies on Alcohol · doi:10.15288/jsa.2003.64.331 · Cited by 1,224 · see citing works
Perloff, R. M. (2014) · Sex Roles · doi:10.1007/s11199-014-0384-6 · Cited by 913 · see citing works
Dynamic Norms Promote Sustainable Behavior, Even if It Is Counternormative
Sparkman, G., & Walton, G. M. (2017) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797617719950 · Cited by 639 · see citing works
Wise interventions: Psychological remedies for social and personal problems.
Walton, G. M., & Wilson, T. D. (2018) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000115 · Cited by 617 · see citing works
Larimer, M. E., Turner, A. P., Mallett, K. A., & Geisner, I. M. (2004) · Psychology of Addictive Behaviors · doi:10.1037/0893-164x.18.3.203 · Cited by 416 · see citing works
Scott-Sheldon, L. A. J., Carey, K. B., Elliott, J. C., Garey, L., & Carey, M. P. (2014) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0035192 · Cited by 198 · see citing works
Reid, A. E., & Carey, K. B. (2015) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2015.06.006 · Cited by 185 · see citing works
Karaffa, K. M., & Koch, J. M. (2016) · Criminal Justice and Behavior · doi:10.1177/0093854815613103 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
The influence of descriptive and injunctive peer norms on adolescents' risky sexual online behavior
Baumgartner, S. E., Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2011) · Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking · doi:10.1089/cyber.2010.0510 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
Predicting health behaviors in young men that put them at risk for heart disease
Mahalik, J. R., & Burns, S. M. (2011) · Psychology of Men & Masculinity · doi:10.1037/a0021416 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Rendsvig, R. K. (2014) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-014-0435-0 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
- Authors
- Schroeder, C. M., & Prentice, D. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Prentice, Deborah A.
- ORCID
- Prentice, Deborah A.
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Social Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1998-12
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 23
- Pages
- 2150-2180
- ISSN
- 0021-9029 (ISSN-L)
- 1559-1816
- OpenAlex
- W2010559569
- Cited by
- 275
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 1.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Keywords
- pluralistic ignorance, university students, alcohol consumption, peer influence, social norms, drinking behavior, social influence, peer opinion
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
