Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on May 20, 2004
Health Education Research 2004 19(5):492-500; doi:10.1093/her/cyg064
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Health Education Research Vol.19 no.5, © Oxford University Press 2004; All rights reserved
Network ‘norms’ or ‘styles’ of ‘drunken comportment’?
1 Department of Public Health and General Practice, Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, PO Box 4345, Christchurch, New Zealand
2 Correspondence to: G. M. Abel; E-mail: gillian.abel{at}chmeds.ac.nz
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Much of what is qualitatively known about alcohol consumption derives from anthropological studies, focusing on the macro or structural level, involving cultural ‘norms’ within either ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ societies. However, we argue for a meso, social network rather than ‘societal’ level of analysis and a focus not on societal ‘norms’, but on ‘styles’ of ‘drunken comportment’ within these networks. Although most ‘drunken comportment’ is acknowledged as excusable by the fact that alcohol has been consumed, some networks place a tighter ‘within-limits’ boundary on their own behavior than others. We illustrate this through the talk of two girl groups within the same social network in a secondary school, who both consume alcohol as a means of performing sociability. Both groups claim ‘disinhibition’ as a primary goal of alcohol consumption, but important differences are observed in placing ‘limits’ on ‘disinhibition’, especially with regards to subsequent sexual behavior. This highlights inadequacies for health promotion programmes.
Much of what is qualitatively known about alcohol consumption derives from anthropological studies, focusing on the macro or structural level, involving cultural ‘norms’ within either ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ societies. However, we argue for a meso, social network rather than ‘societal’ level of analysis and a focus not on societal ‘norms’, but on ‘styles’ of ‘drunken comportment’ within these networks. Although most ‘drunken comportment’ is acknowledged as excusable by the fact that alcohol has been consumed, some networks place a tighter ‘within-limits’ boundary on their own behavior than others. We illustrate this through the talk of two girl groups within the same social network in a secondary school, who both consume alcohol as a means of performing sociability. Both groups claim ‘disinhibition’ as a primary goal of alcohol consumption, but important differences are observed in placing ‘limits’ on ‘disinhibition’, especially with regards to subsequent sexual behavior. This highlights inadequacies for health promotion programmes.
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There are a variety of conceptual frameworks in which alcohol consumption has been studied, with those most often cited within a public health context being the anthropological and the epidemiological perspectives. The anthropological literature on alcohol consumption and consequential behavior has been much influenced by a book produced in the 1960s entitled Drunken Comportment (MacAndrew and Edgerton, 1969
). The authors focused on the non-biological effects of alcohol consumption, calling into question the concept of ‘disinhibition’, submitting that alcohol is not a disinhibitor, but that ‘drunken comportment’ is a learned affair. These learned understandings, it was claimed, form the ‘norms’ by which people's drunken behavior is conceptualized.
What MacAndrew and Edgerton failed to illuminate, however, were the reasons behind variability of ‘drunken comportment’ within western societies. Room critiqued Drunken Comportment on this issue and claimed to offer hypotheses on what features of society are linked to particular patterns of ‘drunken comportment’ (Room, 2001); however, he, too, failed to grapple with the variance of ‘norms’ in ‘drunken comportment’ within any one particular society. It is likely that this failure is due to the failure to move from the societal or macro level to the relational or social network level. Room merely noted a gradient of expectations about drunken behavior and highlighted the problem of thinking in terms of a culture having a single set of ‘norms’. Yet no alternative way of approaching the illumination of such variances was offered.
From an epidemiological perspective, numerous cross-sectional studies have been carried out attempting to link alcohol to risky outcomes such as unsafe sex [e.g. (Hingson et al., 1990; Basen-Engquist et al., 1996; Bailey et al., 1999; Elliott and Lambourn, 1999)] and aggression [e.g. (Wild et al., 1998; Bonomo et al., 2001)] amongst others. However, there is likely to be considerable social and cultural variation linking alcohol consumption to adverse outcomes (Room, 2001). Epidemiology has difficulty in including anthropological insights regarding the consumption of alcohol, with issues such as styles of sociability or meanings often not amenable to questionnaire investigation. Moreover, surveys fail to illuminate why some people may engage in risk behaviors after consuming alcohol and yet others do not. Explanations must go beyond biological reactions to alcohol to examine mediating variables included in causal relationships between alcohol consumption and outcomes, which include individual attitudes and values, and situational factors of place (Coggans and McKellar, 1995).
Variance in drunken behavior within any society can only be opened up through an analysis of the social networks in which people operate. This entails the understanding of the social structural environment and how these structural properties influence the characteristics observed within the environment (Wasserman and Faust, 1994). The influence of parents and peers on adolescent alcohol use has been extensively studied, with many studies reporting peers having a greater influence than parents [e.g. (Kandel, 1985; McLaughlin et al., 1985; Kandel and Andrews, 1987; Kafka and London, 1991)]. Peer influence has been reported to be one of the best predictors of adolescent alcohol consumption [e.g. (Urberg et al., 1997; La Greca et al., 2001)]. Some commentators on youth peer groups uphold that like-minded young people group together as friends and consequently develop a ‘style’ (Michell and West, 1996; West and Michell, 1997), this in contrast to the concept of inducement by peers to engage in certain risky behaviors. Variation in ‘styles’ or ‘norms’ of ‘drunken comportment’ within any one particular peer group is influenced by location within the social network. Alcohol has a role in oiling the wheels of sociability, giving license to individuals to comport themselves in a freer manner. It also functions as a dissolver of hierarchy, enabling sociability across boundaries imposed by positions within social networks (Gusfield, 1991). How far actions or behaviors may stray from the ‘norms’ of sober behavior are dependent on what the individual groups within the social network tacitly acknowledge as being acceptable for them.
Effective health promotion programmes are those aimed at target audiences, and this requires a knowledge of social networks and the implications of social positions within these networks. Knowledge alone has been shown to have little impact on health-related behaviors (Mellanby et al., 1992; Campbell et al., 1999; Mitchell and Smith, 2000). Some would argue that social identities, which are shaped by affiliations with groups within the network, play a key role in health-related behaviors, with these behaviors therefore reflecting the social norms of the group associated with them (Campbell et al., 1999).
This paper examines one particular year group of school children in a New Zealand secondary school. The school was located within a middle-class suburb of Christchurch, drawing its students from the area zoned for entrance to the school. However, the notion of one particular set of ‘norms’ for ‘drunken comportment’ covering one society was certainly made problematic as varying styles of drunken behavior were evident within this cohort of young people. This calls into question whether, in fact, the concept of a ‘norm’ for ‘drunken comportment’ is of any use or whether different underpinnings, such as social network position, make this concept untenable.
So-called ‘disinhibition’ was an accepted, expected and unquestioned assumption about alcohol made by most young people in all locations within the network as the basis for ‘drunken comportment’. However, each group of adolescents within the social network set their own ‘limits’ as to the extent of their drunken behavior and whatever was allowable within these ‘limits’ was accepted as the ‘norms’ of drunken behavior for that particular group. These ‘norms’ may thus vary between groups within the larger social network, resulting in different styles of ‘drunken comportment’ within the same society.
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The study was conducted within a co-educational secondary school in Christchurch, New Zealand. Schools in New Zealand are rated according to the socioeconomic status of the area from which their students are drawn, with a decile rating of 10 given to schools drawing students from the highest socioeconomic suburbs. The school within which this study was conducted had a moderately high decile ranking of 8. The study included both a quantitative and a qualitative component. The quantitative component was aimed at an entire year group of 279 Year 10 students (second year at secondary school) aged 13–14 years, 267 of whom participated in the study giving a response rate of 96%. Parents were asked on an ‘opt-out’ basis for consent to the child's participation. As well as letters of explanation and invitation, the study was explained to pupils at the time of administration, when their written consent was taken.
A short questionnaire was completed in a classroom setting. The questionnaire included a question aimed at establishing smoking frequency and one which sought to ascertain number of drinks participants would consume on any one occasion. Unfortunately, no question on sexual activity was included in the questionnaire due to Ethics Committee restrictions. The primary purpose of the questionnaire, however, was to collect information on friendship links, in order to carry out a social network analysis. Students were asked to name their ‘best friends in Year 10’ at the school, with no restrictions placed on the number of friends that could be named. This was done in order to get an accurate reflection of the social groupings within the year group as restriction can lead to some links not being identified. Most students named between three and six friends. The questionnaires were coded and social network analysis was carried out using the Negopy 4.3 programme in order to look at the issue of groupness (and non-groupness) amongst secondary school children. This package clearly defines a participant's status within the social network based on friendship links. A ‘group member’ is defined as having more than 50% of his/her linkages with other members in the same group and having a link with at least two other members. A ‘group’ consists of at least three members who are connected by some path lying entirely within the group to each of the other members of the group and would remain so connected if up to 10% of the group is removed (Richards, 1995).
We made use of reciprocated links only in defining status within the network, i.e. claims of friendship which were returned by the nominated friend. This was as a result of pilot work where we found that by using unreciprocated links, the groups identified were unrealistically large and the links between members somewhat tenuous. Negopy requires a response rate of 90% or better in order to arrive at a valid representation of the network (Richards, 1995). The 96% response rate for the social network component of this study increases confidence that most friendship links were identified. Non-respondents mean that it is sometimes difficult to identify groups, especially if using reciprocated links, thus leading to misclassification. A visual depiction of the social network of the year group was produced in the form of a sociogram.
Forty-four students were randomly selected from the Year 10 student body in order to participate in the qualitative component of the study. When students refused to participate, replacements were randomly selected until a cohort of 42 was obtained. The cohort study consisted of seven initial focus group sessions in which topics were explored, followed by 42 in-depth interviews each year over a 3-year period. This paper makes use of data from the one-to-one in-depth interviews. Details on the selection and composition of the focus groups have been reported on in a previous paper (Plumridge et al., 2002).
The sociogram was particularly useful to visually locate the participants who were randomly selected for in-depth interviewing within the entire network of the year group. Analysis of the questionnaire revealed that 38% of the year group were consuming three or more drinks on any one occasion. As Ethics Committee restrictions did not allow purposeful selection of participants based on information received in the questionnaires, the cohort of 42 participants were located in varied locations within the network. However, within two different girl groups, three members had been randomly selected from each. This enabled comparisons to be made between the two groups with regard to group ‘norms’. This paper makes use of the in-depth interviews from these six girls.
Names have been changed to protect confidentiality. Maria, Caroline and Karen belonged to Group A, which consisted of 11 members, and Debbie, Dee and Maryanne to Group B, which consisted of six members. They had no common point of contact, i.e. no liaisons linking the two groups. The participants in both groups talked about consuming alcohol to the point of getting drunk.
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All interviewees talked of being ‘disinhibited’ as a positive outcome of alcohol consumption, in fact, as the main reason why they drank. However, there was a social meaning attached to ‘disinhibition’; it was not understood in the same way in all group networks. It was, in other words, an assumption that alcohol would produce this ‘disinhibition’, expected, measured and evaluated differently in different locations within the network. Group A girls felt it was not necessary to drink too much to entitle them to exhibit ‘disinhibition’. As Karen said:
...so we can like get....well, not like majorly pissed [drunk], just a little bit, and go down to the beach, and there's usually...other people down there...and just kind of like, I don't know,...talk to them and stuff...run around...fall in the water.She explains how the alcohol facilitates a change from her normal shy persona to one of exhibitionist:
Karen: And I do sometimes I do a few stupid things.From a display of disinhibition, she is able to achieve a style of sociability that she otherwise would be unable to do and in addition gains a ‘cool’ status.Int: Like what?
Karen: Like I'd probably get up and start dancing everywhere.
Int: Yeah.
Karen: Something I won't usually do, go toot-de-do. And I start like yelling my head off ‘cause I'm usually like kind of quiet.
Int: Ah-ha.
Karen: So, you know, when the alcohol kicks in I'll be like, ‘Hey guys, what's up?’ like just to random people I don't know, just, you know, wave over them, ‘Hey’.
[Group A]
Karen: Mmm, kind of um...when you're pissed, I kind of find people kind of stick to me. Like...cause even they all go, ‘Oh, you're so cool when you're pissed’, and all this stuff. I'm like, ‘Cool’.Others in her group produced similar accounts of the benefits of controlled disinhibition:[Group A]
Maria: Yeah and it's makes you have the guts to do anything that you want, so.This aspect of ‘disinhibition’, of drunken behavior making sociability easy and acceptable, was also valued in Group B. Dee maintained that ‘drunken comportment’ enabled deviation from the ‘normal’ social inhibitions: ‘You're just not like [...] normal. You're just more relaxed and chilled out and stuff’. She talked of the ability to act disinhibitedly: ‘...when you're pissed...you're more like just want to run around and do all sorts of crazy stuff’. Debbie pointed out that for her, alcohol ‘...just puts you in another world, another [...] and it gives you more confidence and...just fun’.[Group A]
Caroline: Yeah, it's fun, cause you do really weird things and in the morning you feel really funny, cause you did all these weird things and everyone laughs at you. It's just a big joke.
[Group A]
Both groups argued that barriers were broken down between sections of the network through ‘drunken comportment’; people that they would never ordinarily talk to were suddenly available as social companions. This was in fact the main use of alcohol: to oil the wheels of sociability and entitle them to do and say things that were outside of the ‘norms’ of sober behavior. It eased relations between genders, unlikely or bolder actions were accepted. So rather than consuming alcohol so as to achieve chemical ‘disinhibition’, alcohol was expected to be a facilitator for sociability by both groups.
Maria: Just going just being able to talk to anybody cause you just go and talk to them.However, for Group B, not only did ‘disinhibition’ allow sociability to occur more easily, it was the only conceivable way of socializing:[Group A]
Maryanne: But it's a lot easier to talk to people like when you're drunk and [...] just walk up to people, anyone and just say, ‘Hi, how are you?’.
Int: Right. Yeah.
Maryanne: Cause you're a lot more friendlier and [...].
[Group B]
Int: ...how do people socialize with each other at the parties?However, the acceptable ‘within limits’ boundaries to ‘drunken comportment’ were understood differently by the girls from the two groups—they placed different limits on what other behavior was acceptable for ‘drunken comportment’. Both groups accepted that drunken behavior excused ‘getting with’ boys at parties. However, Group A girls placed limits on actually going through with full sexual intercourse. They would accept that oral intercourse could occur, but held true to notions of sex happening within a relationship and being something special. Maria talked of giving oral sex to boys at parties whilst drunk and allowing boys to ‘...just like get with me and feel me up and shit’. However, she depicted sex for her as having to occur within relationships and did not contemplate going through with full sexual intercourse whilst drunk:Debbie: Just get drunk.
[Group B]
Maryanne: I don't really...really usually meet people if I'm not drunk or something.
Int: Right, so tell me like at a party what happens if you see someone?
Maryanne: Just go up to them and tell them that you like them cause like you don't even care what you say to them when you're drunk, so.
[Group B]
Debbie: Um [...] well, if I meet someone and I'll chat to them [...].
Int: Yeah?
Debbie: And if I'm drinking around people that I that I normally feel uncomfortable around with, don't.
Int: Right. Right.
Debbie: I just don't care when I'm drunk.
[Group B]
Maria: And for a chick, I think, yeah, if you want a relationship to work, you have to make sure that the guy is going to like not just want you for sex, so you have to wait.Even whilst drunk she asserted that she had control of the situation:[Group A]
Maria: Well, usually it's like at a party. He goes, ‘Oh, do you want to go to a room?’ and stuff, and so I just go, ‘No’. So then he goes, ‘Oh, why? Why? Just come, come’. I go, ‘No. I'm going to leave you if you keep on saying this’. He goes, ‘Oh okay’, then shuts up for the rest of the night.Maria's friends in Group A reiterated her concerns about having sex whilst drunk, all maintaining that they would keep within their own set ‘limits’:[Group A]
Maria: But, I wouldn't like have sex if I was like really drunk and then like not remember half of it cause that's just like dumb.
Int: Yeah.
Maria: And then you'd feel quite bummed out cause it would be like your first time and you don't remember it.
Int: Right, right, so would you want it to be sort of like special?
Maria: Yeah, I suppose, just not like [...] drunk and then him hating you the next morning and shit, so [laugh].
[Group A]
Caroline: ...I didn't know this person and I was very drunk, so.The girls from Group B did not limit what could occur as far as sexual relations were concerned. Having full sexual intercourse whilst drunk was accepted without question, as a part of what was permissible or rather even inevitable, as ‘drunken comportment’. They intimated that sex was not part of their normal sober behavior. Debbie maintained that sex occurred ‘...mostly when I'm drunk that's when I do it’. Dee reinforces the fact that they would rarely have sex when sober:Int: Oh okay.
Caroline: But I wasn't that drunk to realize...that he was a stranger, so. He was like really weird, so.
[Group A]
Caroline: I reckon I'll...no, um...well, it depends. I'm not going to do it with some weirdo that I don't really know.
[Group A]
Karen: Cause, no,...well, no, I haven't anyway cause, I don't know, I don't want to...just get so that I'd just go off and...do anything like just go get with a guy or anything, just something that I can't control.
[Group A]
Dee: Because like you probably, if you were straight, you probably wouldn't like just do it, cause you probably wouldn't [...].However, having sex whilst drunk was considered part of the normal rules for the occasion. Desire and relationships were not called into question.Int: Right.
Dee: Wouldn't want to.
[Group B]
Int: Yeah. Right. Right. Okay. So tell me about the different um [...] like you know, when you just meet a guy at a party, and [...] and sleep with them then, how does that kind of happen?For Group B girls, the disinhibition of sociability did not mean that they had felt a loss of control when they went ahead and had sex. They did not lose control since sex was contingent on drunkenness, and hence not outside the ‘norm’ of their understanding of ‘drunken comportment’:Dee: I don't know.
Int: Just how's it lead up to [...]?
Dee: I don't know. You just [...] you're just like pissed and stuff and like getting with them and stuff, and then, I don't know, it just [...] leads into it.
Int: Right.
Dee: I'm not sure how, but it just does.
[Group B]
Debbie: ah it just sort of happens, or we would be getting with each other and then like go somewhere and then it just happens.
Int: Right so like the guy didn't say well you know lets have sex now.
Debbie: Nah.
Int: Or anything like that [...] just flows.
Debbie: Yeah.
Int: Right, and do you enjoy it?
Debbie: Um.
Int: [...] like you think like [...] I feel horny I want sex or...
Debbie: Hmm, not really.
Int: No.
Debbie: No.
Int: you just do it cause why?
Debbie: Cause, I don't know I'm drunk.
[Group B]
Debbie: Um everyone's drinking, everyone's drunk, everyone just [...] I don't know, hooks up with whatever.
[Group B]
Int: Do you...I mean were you so pissed that you didn't know what you were doing or were you...you knew what you were doing and you just...?Neither Group A nor Group B saw disinhibition as meaning loss of total control, but how they understood the controls called for differed radically.Maryanne: I knew what I was doing.
Int: Right.
Maryanne: And I just did it.
[Group B]
Debbie: I do sometimes go off with guys, but not [...] no-one that I don't really want to go off with.
[Group B]
So within even a small and apparently relatively homogeneous ‘society’ of one age and academic year of pupils at a moderately high decile school, understanding of ‘drunken comportment’ had to be highly contextualized. Our data demonstrates that underneath a superficially similar understanding of the ‘disinhibition’ and contingent sociability resulting from alcohol use, lay very different understandings of the limits and accountabilities to be exercised ‘legitimately’ as part of ‘drunken comportment’.
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We argue that while alcohol has undoubtedly a pharmacological effect on the body and cognition, the translation of this into behavior has to be understood as a socially mediated rather than solely biologically impelled activity. Everyone has expectations and ‘knowledge’ about the effects of alcohol, but these can be seen as meanings attached to somatic sensations of pharmacological impact to generate the ‘drunken comportment’ expected of alcohol consumption, which can thus be expected and shown to vary greatly within a ‘society’ rather than comprise unitary, monolithic societal ‘norms’ or expectations. However, to appreciate the degree to which the meanings and moral orderings of alcohol are contextualized across society, we must develop useful ways of categorizing context. There are many potential strategies for this, the usefulness of which will vary. Some may be theoretically precise, but many deriving from sociological theorizing about the nature of society will be contested either as concepts or in their problems of application. This introduces yet more ‘noise’ into the analytical stethoscope.
Social network analysis (SNA) may offer one largely empirical means of side-stepping such problems. While there are many judgment calls to be made in deciding upon any SNA investigation, it can at least offer the advantage of working from the participants' understandings of social arrangements rather than the theories of the researcher, which may prescribe social configurations or determinants at odds with or ‘strange’ to ‘emic’ perspectives. Our earlier work has shown that relational understandings are useful ways of understanding the distribution in moral understandings and deportments around issues like cigarette smoking (Abel et al., 2002). We argue that such precedents hold promise for developing dynamic alternatives to understanding the lives of people embedded in their social networks and how this impacts on their experience of risk behaviors (Pescosolido and Levy, 2002). The use of software packages such as Negopy enables the categorization of actors within a social network into groups members, liaisons (who play a role in linking groups) and isolates, and the visual display of the network in the form of a sociogram enhances understanding of the workings of the network (Abel et al., 2002). Our current data, also categorized in this way, allowed differences to be detected in acceptance and meanings of ‘disinhibition’ around alcohol. While both the networks examined within the network in this paper argued for the benefits of alcohol for ‘disinhibition’ and for facilitation of sociability without loss of ‘control’, ‘disinhibition’ and behaviors requiring control were understood very differently. Thus, we were able to explore below the level of ‘norm’ as understood as a societal prescription.
Moreover, since the meaning and moral implications of ‘disinhibition’ and ‘control’ can be shown to be differently understood and attached differently to alcohol consumption in different contexts, a contextualized approach is essential for health promotion. This renders problematic health promotion rhetoric around the risk of alcohol consumption as some sort of global, pharmacologically induced, ‘disinhibition’. Many health promotion programmes are based on behavioral change theories, which all propose a rational, linear process of decision making, focusing on individual cognition, failing to take into account the context of the situation in which drunken behavior is performed. As assumptions of what constitutes acceptable limits for drunken ‘disinhibition’ vary between locations within the social network, it is inevitable that that any one blanket health promotion programme will be ineffective in influencing young people from all these different networks. Rather, an understanding of the networks operating, and the distribution of moral assumptions and deportments within, will be go some way towards developing a robust and efficacious basis to health promotion programmes and developments.
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Acknowledgments |
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The study was funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand. Thanks are due to school authorities, Vivien Daley for liaison work and acting as one of the moderators, and to all the pupils who participated.
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Received on June 2, 2003; accepted on August 28, 2003
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