Experimental Test of Facebook Social Drinking Norms on Adolescent Alcohol Use
Condition: Feedback, Psychological; Underage Alcohol Use; Risk-Taking
MeSH terms: Alcohol Drinking; Underage Drinking
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The proposed research will be the first study to focus on experimentally manipulating both
      injunctive and descriptive norms on social networking sites in order to elucidate the
      relationship between alcohol and abstainer displays on social networking sites and subsequent
      alcohol cognitions, use, and related negative consequences. Based on literature focusing on
      developmentally appropriate health models for adolescents, the Prototype Willingness Model
      (PWM) assumes that health-risk behaviors occur either when individuals have developed
      intentions to engage in a risk behavior (and these intentions vary as a function of attitudes
      and perceived injunctive norms) or through willingness to engage in risks (which varies as a
      function of perceived vulnerability to negative consequences, perceived descriptive norms ,
      and prototypes). To fully understand the relationships between alcohol abstaining displays on
      social networking sites, we will examine 1) the role of descriptive and injunctive abstainer
      and user norms, when experimentally manipulated with SNS profiles, on willingness and
      intentions, subsequent alcohol use and related negative consequences among adolescents (age 1
      5-20) 2) whether intentions and willingness mediate the relation between our experimental
      manipulation and subsequent alcohol use and negative consequences and whether 3) individual
      differences in social influence moderate the effect of the experimental manipulation on
      intentions, willingness, alcohol use, and negative consequences. We will test these aims by
      recruiting a community sample of adolescents (N = 300), living in the greater Seattle
      metropolitan area. Participants will complete a web-based baseline assessment and participate
      in an in-person experimental manipulation in which they are either assigned to see same-sex
      social networking site profiles of alcohol abstainers, abstainers +users, or a control
      condition where neither user or abstainer information will be provided. Immediately after the
      manipulation, participants will answer a series of questions about the profiles they just
      viewed and their alcohol-related cognitions. Participants will also complete a one-month in
      person follow up assessment to test for impacts on intentions, willingness, alcohol use, and
      related negative consequences. Additionally, individual differences in social influence will
      be examined as possible moderators o f the relationship between SNS-portrayed norms and our
      primary outcomes. This study is both significant and innovative in that it uses a theoretical
      perspective to experimentally test the impact of alcohol content, in particular abstainer
      norms, on Facebook on adolescent alcohol use and related cognitions. The results have the
      potential to inform preventative interventions while addressing NIH priorities.
    


Intervention name(s): Abstainer; Abstainer + User; Control
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Participants view social networking site profiles with alcohol content referencing abstaining from alcohol use.; Participants view social networking site profiles with alcohol content referencing abstaining from alcohol use and using alcohol.; Participants view social networking site profiles with no alcohol content.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Participant)
Primary purpose: Other