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The influence of normative misperceptions on alcohol-related problems among school-age adolescents in the U.S

Review of Economics of the Household volume 19, pages 453–472 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Adolescents usually overestimate their peers’ alcohol use, and these misperceptions affect adolescents’ own alcohol-related behaviors. Using a nationally representative dataset of U.S. adolescents in grades seven to twelve, we estimate the effect of misperception about friends’ alcohol use on adolescents’ alcohol consumption behaviors and alcohol-related problems. Overestimation of friends’ alcohol use significantly increases the likelihood of all alcohol consumption behaviors and all alcohol-related problems approximately one year later. The influence of misperceptions of friends’ drinking is significantly larger for male adolescents than for female adolescents in the cases of heavy drinking, vomiting after drinking, and drunk driving.

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Notes

  1. The analysis in that study used a single indicator variable coded as one if the participant had in the past twelve months been cited or arrested for drinking, possessing, or trying to buy alcohol; had been cited or arrested for DUI; had missed school because of drinking; had been warned by a friend about drinking; had passed out; had been unable to remember what happened while drinking; had broken or damaged something; had had a headache or hangover; had been punished by parents or guardians for drinking; had had sex without using a condom while drinking; or had been involved in a motor vehicle crash while drinking, and zero otherwise (Song et al. 2012).

  2. The various drinking consequences were combined into an index that was equal to one if the respondent reported getting sick, getting in trouble, doing something they regretted, not studying, getting into a fight or argument, missing school or work, playing drinking games, or driving after drinking, and zero otherwise (Pedersen et al. 2017).

  3. Add Health’s computer-assisted personal interviews were used to ensure confidentiality of responses and reduce reporting bias.

  4. Add Health uses a multi-stage clustered sample design with observations having unequal probability of selection, which requires the use of sampling weights to make the estimates nationally representative (Chen 2014).

  5. Non-linear logistic and probit models produced similar results as the linear probability model (in terms of magnitudes of the marginal effects at the mean and in terms of statistical significance); however, those models had difficulties with convergence after school fixed effects were included.

  6. We also estimated a series of models by gradually adding more demographic and socio-economic controls and then adding school fixed effects. The coefficients on the misperception variable and on the actual friends’ use variable demonstrated stability across these estimation results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Toledo, 2801 Bancroft St., Toledo, OH, 43606-3390, USA

    Aliaksandr Amialchuk & Onur Sapci

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  1. Aliaksandr Amialchuk
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Correspondence to Aliaksandr Amialchuk.

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Amialchuk, A., Sapci, O. The influence of normative misperceptions on alcohol-related problems among school-age adolescents in the U.S. Rev Econ Household 19, 453–472 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-020-09481-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-020-09481-3

Keywords

  • Alcohol
  • Problems
  • Social norms
  • Misperception
  • Adolescents

JEL classification

  • C23
  • I12
  • J13