Date of Award

Summer 8-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology

Committee Director

Cathy Lau-Barraco

Committee Member

Sarah Ehlke

Committee Member

Natalie Yarish

Abstract

College students are at increased risk for negative alcohol-related outcomes. Theoretical and empirical support suggest that peer groups play a crucial role in college student alcohol use, in part because they establish normative values and behaviors (i.e., norms) that members follow. Research indicates that those who identify more strongly with a group are more likely to embody that group’s values—particularly regarding drinking. Notably, injunctive norms, or perceptions of peer permissibility toward drinking, predict individual drinking outcomes, such that perceiving one’s peers as more approving confers additional risk for personal drinking. However, prior examinations of injunctive norms have not assessed perceptions of permissibility of a broader range of drinking-related behaviors, including drinking behaviors in general (e.g., drinking on the weekend), drinking consequences (e.g., drinking and driving), and abstaining from drinking (e.g., abstaining due to health reasons), which may yield differential outcomes. In addition, while injunctive norms have typically been measured as stable, recent evidence suggests that they fluctuate over time. Given one’s drinking peer group may vary across drinking occasions, perceptions of permissibility vary as a function of last night’s peer group, subsequently predicting drinking risk. As such, the current study aimed to use daily-level data to examine how perceptions of last night’s injunctive norms (i.e., drinking behavior, drinking consequences, and abstaining norms) predict same-day drinking outcomes (i.e., drinking quantity, binge drinking likelihood, and drinking consequences), and whether identification with last night’s drinking group moderates these associations. College student binge drinkers (N=28) completed a 10-day daily diary study assessing perceptions of last night’s drinking group’s injunctive norms, identification with the group, and subsequent drinking outcomes. Results indicated that daily perceptions of permissibility surrounding drinking consequences were positively associated with drinking quantity and binge drinking likelihood. Other hypothesized associations, including moderation effects, were not significant. Findings provide preliminary support for the relevance of consequence-related injunctive norms at the event level, and underscore the importance of examining proximal, context-specific perceptions of peers when studying college student drinking.

Comments

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculties Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology through the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/va7t-0029

ISBN

9798193214120

ORCID

0009-0002-1042-0917

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