Public debate on excessive drinking may, paradoxically, actually reinforce the problem, writes Patrick Kenny.
The approach of spring is heralded in the United States each February by the celebration of Groundhog Day. The tradition was made famous by the 1993 film starring Bill Murray in which the main character, a journalist, is sent to cover the event in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Mysteriously, he gets stuck reliving the same day again and again until he learns some valuable lessons and can move on with the rest of his life. Ireland has its own version of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day.
We call it St Patrick's Day.
Year after year we engage in the same debate about excessive youth drinking. And year after year we face the same problems. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result each time, then our debate on alcohol is truly insane.
Part of the problem is that our sense of national identity is stereotypically tied to drunkenness. The alcohol industry is only too happy to feed into this culture. Guinness puts its logo on Irish-themed party merchandise and this year Beamish ran a press advertising campaign stressing its Irishness, complete with a background of shamrocks and green colours.
While none of this is illegal or breaks any rules, it does run counter to the image of an industry that claims to be concerned about excessive alcohol consumption. Diageo, for example, makes much of its social responsibility. It has been running ads encouraging people to drink sensibly lest they see "A great St Patrick's Day wasted". How people actually process this message is open to debate given that for many, a great St Patrick's Day is wasted if they don't actually get drunk. Of course, the alcohol industry claims that the tens of millions of euro it spends annually on alcohol advertising doesn't increase consumption levels, so one wonders why they think a few words on the side of a bus would reduce it.
Tough decisions and political courage are needed to deal with youth binge drinking. The most effective measures, such as controlling access to alcohol (the proposal to close pubs and off-licences until 6pm on St Patrick's Day is one example) seem almost politically impossible, while ineffective measures (telling people to drink sensibly) are politically popular.
Perhaps those concerned with alcohol policy should take a lesson from the smoking debate. One year ago it seemed unlikely that the smoking ban could be effectively implemented. Today it is the most normal thing in the world to eat and drink in a smoke-free environment. More widespread debate is needed to create public support for the politically unpopular, but effective, alcohol policies. Yet paradoxically, this public debate, especially when highlighting the seriousness of the problem, could actually contribute to the problem itself. Many international studies over the last decade have focused on the role that misperceived social norms play in encouraging youth drinking.
Stated simply, these misperceptions occur because we tend to remember really extreme behaviour. The sight of drunken teens vomiting or fighting on the streets sticks prominently in our memory and receives lots of media coverage, yet those who have behaved responsibly don't make as much of an impact on us and certainly don't get reported in the media. We then tend to generalise from the extreme behaviour we remember, and assume that more people fit into this category than actually do in reality. This misperceived social norm then becomes a standard against which behaviour is measured. Insecure teenagers are likely to process this as a social pressure to behave in a way that they perceive is expected of them. By understanding the effect of these misperceptions, we can develop a potentially useful approach to reduce youth drinking. Traditional strategies focusing on the negative consequences of drunkenness have the side-effect of highlighting the problem and contributing to a misperception of the norm, in turn reinforcing the problem.
Contrary to the mixed results of these traditional policies, US-based research shows that campaigns correcting the misperception of the norm, by clearly communicating how much the average student actually drinks, have been very successful at reducing heavy drinking. Some college campuses and high schools have seen reductions of dangerous drinking of up to 25 per cent as a result of this method.
Such an approach can also work in a context such as Ireland where heavy drinking is already the norm. The research indicates that no matter how bad the problem is in reality, people tend to perceive that it is worse than it objectively is. It is this misperception of an already dysfunctional reality that becomes the standard for behaviour.
In turn, the reality gets worse, fuelling further misperceptions in a classic example of the vicious circle phenomenon. Most of the research on this issue is American in origin. While further testing would be needed in a European context, there seems to be no major reason in principle why such an approach couldn't at least be tried here.
It also has the added benefit of being politically popular.
Tackling underage drinking will require an openness to learn from other cultures and implement creative, and occasionally tough, policies. Doing the same things year after year is no longer sufficient. We cannot afford to keep reliving Groundhog Day.
Patrick Kenny is a lecturer in marketing in the Dublin Institute of Technology.
[ Pat.Kenny@dit.ie ]