Collegiate Drinking and the New Academic Year: 

Let the Games Begin...

…no, not the Hunger Games, although at times our work in higher ed may seem like we are perennially selected as competitors for the latest games.

At the start of the new academic year…for those on semesters…it is appropriate to pause and remember that humor can be a useful tool in our efforts to convey information as we seek to move individuals, students in particular, through the stages of readiness to change. For those who have yet to consider that change is a pursuit worth consideration—AKA the Pre-contemplators—humor can serve to capture their attention and invite a further consideration of a message related to revisiting personal behaviors and, hopefully, moving to a contemplative stage of readiness to change.

As with any advertising, it is important to engage the consumer before attempting to sell the  product. As Simon Sinek suggests in his TED lecture on “How great leaders inspire” (see http://bit.ly/PAzvuf), most purveyors of information begin at the outside or more superficial level of explaining “what” a thing is and move on to “how” it works and perhaps, lastly, explain “why” the listener should be interested. “Great leaders” he argues, start with the “why” and move towards the “what,” realizing that once one has been engaged, the issue becomes not motivating them to buy my idea as much as pursue their own values. He repeatedly suggests in this brief clip, “people do not buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” Consequently, “suggesting that collegians revisit their perceptions of alcohol as a substance and drinking as a behavior is a tough sell. As Prochaska pointed out over 30 years ago, pre-contemplators do not think their behavior is the result of a problem; they believe their behavior is the pursuit of a solution.

One of the best ways to invite a pre-contemplator to revisit his or her behavior and increase the likelihood of moving towards becoming a contemplator is consciousness raising activities or helping individuals to look at “the facts” from a different perspective. Challenging individuals to revisit these “facts” as they manifest themselves in their lives will rarely work if our focus is on “their” problem. As my grandfather used to say, “You don’t remove a hornets’ nest from the porch eves by beating it with a stick.” Two strategies that work particularly well regarding consciousness raising are: (1) humor and (2) sensational if not seemingly ludicrous metaphors or examples to illustrate points that force individuals to re-examine assumptions they have made regarding particular behaviors to which they have habituated.

We are all likely familiar with exercises where smoking is translated from cigarettes consumed per day to dollars spent in a year or beers consumed on a Friday night are converted to calories consumed one’s freshman year. These are "classic" examples of consciousness raising activities or strategies designed to get people to look at "the usual" from a different perspective in order to more objectively evaluate its utility. Humor can also serve to get someone’s attention and invite him or her to pause, smile, and rethink—if just for a moment—a behavior or practice that has been repeated so often as to become invisible. Psychologists refer to this as “habituation” and no one changes a behavior that has become so ritualized as to have become invisible in the grand scheme of things in one’s daily life. Take for example this student answer on a physics exam when the required answer was unknown:

Although “funnies” like these make their way around the Internet with regularity, when incorporated into work with students, they can serve to bring poignant issues to the surface for discussion in a non-threatening manner and often open the door to a meaningful discussion about realities without students necessarily  perceiving receipt of the “dad/mom” talk from the practitioner. For example, with the “joke” included above, the practitioner could ask an audience of students what they thought was going through the mind of the test taker. This can easily lead to a discussion about the link between collegiate drinking and its “perceived” consequences, then onto social norms, what factors differentiate between low- and high-risk when drinking, etc. Simalarly, programs can be done using clips from films like Animal House, which are readily available on YouTube. With a little investigating, several clips can be identified, shown, and then discussed regarding what makes them so funny…and then when their humor is exposed refocusing on the risks likely associated with the clip if it were to actually occur on campus.

The examples of humor an "silly" metaphors or examples are endless and only limited by the resourcefulness and creativity of the practitioner who emplys them. My point in this post is to suggst that humor and “creative metaphors” and stories can go a long way to opening the door to conversations with pre-contemplative students about their high-risk behaviors without having the necessarily employ the proverbial “2X4 to get their attention."

Again, and to sum up, citing my grandfather, who used to remind me that, “Whether you rush in the front door or sneak in the back, it is just as warm by the fire." Moral: Pay attention to how you plan to get from where you are to where you want to be.

what do you think?

Dr. Robert