Reducing risky behaviour through the provision of information
There is a long history of school-based programmes and other interventions that have sought to reduce young people’s participation in risky behaviour in response to Government and public concern over such behaviour and its associated harms. However, there is little consensus about which approaches are most effective, or which groups should be targeted.
The Department for Education commissioned this report from the Centre for Understanding Behavioural Change (CUBeC) to explore whether engagement in risky behaviour could be reduced by providing young people with information.
First, the report sets the context by summarising a selection of existing empirical research about patterns of risky behaviour amongst young people, supplemented with our own empirical analysis. We then review the current literature on the effectiveness of two specific approaches to supplying young people with information to reduce participation in risky behaviour: (i) providing information on the consequences of that behaviour; and (ii) providing information about the true prevalence of that behaviour amongst their peers (‘social norms’).
The ‘consequences’ approach is based on the assumption that young people underestimate the potential costs of participation in risky behaviour: providing information on the consequences should therefore make such behaviour less attractive. The social norms approach notes that young people typically overestimate the prevalence of risky behaviour amongst their peers, and holds that young people’s behaviour is influenced by perceptions of what their peers do. Tackling any misperceptions could therefore reduce participation in risky behaviour.
Published : 11th March 2013
Publisher : Department for Education [ More From This Publisher ]
Rights : Crown Copyright
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