What matters: Reality or Perception? The impact of peer binging on college student drinking behaviors
- Presenter:
Chair: Catherine McLaughlin; Discussant: Jeff DeSimone Mon June 5, 2006 13:45-15:15 Room 225
The objective of this paper is to determine the relative importance of actual and perceived rates of heavy drinking on individual behavior. We will also test whether the accuracy of students’ perceptions of heavy drinking matter by examining the difference in the student perceptions from the actual rates of heavy drinking on campus has an effect on the individual’s propensity to consume.
Methodology: Because peer effects potentially suffer from multiple sources of endogeneity problems, we use instrumental variable techniques and the 1997, 1999 and 2001 College Alcohol Studies to examine how the peer rate measures affect individual behavior. We assume that no contextual effects exist, which allows us to use average parental characteristics of peers to identify the effect of the level of heavy drinking on the probability that an individual engages in heavy episodic drinking. The CAS surveys ask students the question, “Based on what you have heard or experienced, approximately what proportion of [all students/ your friends] do you think are heavy or problem drinkers at this school?” We will examine whether there are differences in the peer effects based on the actual and perceived measures (based on the above self-reports) of peer problem drinking. These measures include: percent of all students estimated who are heavy or problem drinkers, percent of friends that are heavy or problem drinkers, the difference between their estimate of problem drinkers and the actual rate of binge drinking. We will also test for differences based on whether individual’s over- or under-estimate the peer rate of drinking.
Preliminary Results: Heavy episodic drinkers estimate slightly higher average rates of heavy/problem drinking at schools and much higher rates of heavy drinking among their friends than non-heavy episodic drinkers. Student perceived rates of heavy drinking are positively correlated with the actual rates of drinking at their schools. The perceived rate of heavy drinkers has a larger marginal effect on the probability of binge drinking by the individual than the actual rate at the school; but the difference between the actual and perceived rates of heavy drinking reduces the probability of binge drinking.
