Revolutionizing normative re-education to increase effectiveness with non-treatment seekers

Normative re-education (e.g., personalized normative feedback (PNF)) is a popular behavior change intervention strategy with non-treatment seeking populations. It is central to most alcohol prevention programs for college students and others. Although PNF has been shown to be efficacious, effect sizes are relatively small and a number of limitations associated with this approach exist: psychological reactance, believability/credibility of the normative statistics source, the undermining influence of alcohol images on social media, and a lack of autonomy in participation. The Heads UP Alcohol Prevention and Intervention Lab at Loyola Marymount University lab initiated a program of research that leverages gamification to address these limitations and improve the effectiveness of normative re-education programs. This talk presents a series of studies that isolated critical components of gamification (i.e., virtual copresence, chance-based uncertainty, and points systems) which increased the effectiveness of PNF interventions. Further, results from two studies testing gamified normative re-education programs with two distinct samples of non-treatment-seeking individuals (college students and lesbian- and bisexual-identified women) will be presented. Gamification is a promising avenue to overcome limitations inherent to PNF and increase the efficacy of normative re-education interventions.

Speakers:

• Dr. Joseph LaBrie, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Heads UP Alcohol Prevention and Intervention Lab at Loyola Marymount University

Upon arrival, please see the receptionist and obtain a parking permit to place on your dashboard. Lunch will be served outside in the courtyard immediately following the talk.

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