IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v26y1980i3p159-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Norm Qualities and Alcoholism

Author

Listed:
  • Nancy A. Lafferty

    (Education Consultant Institute for Education in Peace and Justice St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.)

  • J.M.C. Holden

    (Mersey Regional Health Authority (Teaching) Merseyside, England)

  • Helen E. Klein

    (Department of Psychiatry University of Missouri — Columbia and Missouri Institute of Psychiatry St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.)

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between three types of norms and chronic alcoholism. Three types of norms— proscriptive, prescriptive, and nonscriptive— were used as categories to investigate the norms of American chronic alcoholics. Five sources of norms were used to identify the reference groups who were perceived as influencing the alcoholics' drinking patterns. The reference groups included co-workers, church, family, friends, and parents. Among 85 American subjects, chronic alcoholism tended to be highest in a proscriptive environment, lower in a prescriptive environment, and lowest in a nonscriptive environment. Proscriptive norms were those which were perceived as stating directly that a person should not drink excessively at all. The sources of the proscriptive norms were analyzed. Church and parents were found to be the perceived sources of proscriptive norms for the chronic alcoholics studied. The data suggest that both parents and church members need to be taken into consideration when planning rehabilitation programmes for chronic alcoholics.

Suggested Citation

  • Nancy A. Lafferty & J.M.C. Holden & Helen E. Klein, 1980. "Norm Qualities and Alcoholism," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 26(3), pages 159-165, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:26:y:1980:i:3:p:159-165
    DOI: 10.1177/002076408002600302
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002076408002600302
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/002076408002600302?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:26:y:1980:i:3:p:159-165. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.