BACKGROUND: Personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions are designed to reduce misperceived drinking norms by delivering feedback regarding the actual drinking behavior of college students, thereby leading to subsequent reductions in one's own drinking.
OBJECTIVE: We examined the roles of data source credibility and reference group proximity in the effectiveness of a laboratory-based PNF intervention to reduce perceived drinking norms and thereby decrease intentions to drink.
METHOD: Following completion of an online preintervention survey and using a 2 (highly credible data source/low credible data source) × 2 (proximal reference group/distal reference group) between-subjects factorial design, 104 college student drinkers were randomly assigned to condition. Participants then completed a postintervention questionnaire to assess for changes in various aspects of drinking.
RESULTS: Highly credible feedback was associated with greater reductions in perceived weekly drinking by American college students compared to feedback with low credibility. Similarly, more proximal than distal reference group feedback led to greater reductions in perceived weekly drinking by a same-gender/same-class year students at one's university. No condition effects emerged for intended drinks per week.
CONCLUSIONS: PNF interventions may benefit from considering data source credibility and reference group proximity to reduce misperceptions of college student drinking, depending on the goals and resources of practitioners implementing such programs. Even the use of such a distal reference group as American college students can indeed lead to a reduction of normative perceptions provided there is an emphasis on the credibility of the data source.