'Leap of faith' required on binge drinking

By John Harrington

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Drinking culture Binge drinking

Government must stress that responsible drinking is the norm
Government must stress that responsible drinking is the norm
The Government must take a "leap of faith" and accentuate positive messages around alcohol to change drinking culture for the better. The message...

The Government must take a "leap of faith" and accentuate positive messages around alcohol to change drinking culture for the better.

The message was given in today's conference on "social norms", where it was argued that people can be encouraged to act responsibly by stressing that it's normal to do so.

Academics studied behaviour of students and found that far fewer drink irresponsibly than they perceived. Therefore, the best way to foster a sensible attitude is to accentuate this and to "normalise" such behaviour.

This contrasts to the Government's current Know Your Limits ad campaign, which highlights the negative effects of heavy drinking.

"It's not about telling people what to do and what not to do," said Jennifer Bauerie of the National Social Norms Institute in the US. "It's about telling people, 'this is what's happening ', and let them make a decision."

Times executive and former Conservative Party advisor Daniel Finkelstein, who chaired the London conference, said this kind of approach is likely to be at the "cutting edge" of policy decisions in the next year — because it's cheaper than other methods.

The seminar was organised by Noctis, which is to study drinking behaviour of students at four universities to see the effect of "social norms" theory.

The group's executive director Paul Smith said the approach "can be a valuable tool to bring about cultural change".

He said: "Legislation targeting the industry can only address part of that.

"The Government needs to take a leap of faith to accentuate the positive, which goes against its recent approach.

"If we want to bring positive changes we have to bring a positive messages."

Related topics Legislation

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