Drinking norms and alcohol-related problems in the United States

One of Bales's three related hypotheses concerning how cultures or social structures influence the level of alcoholism in a population--that culturally determined attitudes toward drinking and intoxication determine whether alcohol will be used to relieve the stress generated in a society--is examined in the first systematic test of that hypothesis based on American data. A proscriptive norm index was computed for each of the 50 states based on percentage population residing in legally dry areas, the degree of legal restrictions on the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and the percentage population of Mormons and Fundamentalists. The most proscriptive states are located in the southern region of the United States. Proscriptive norms are significantly correlated with all of the indicators of alcohol-related problems studied. Most of the correlations remain significant when five other variables are controlled. Proscriptive norms are negatively correlated with the indicators of heavy drinking, but positively correlated with the "social disruptiveness" of alcohol (arrest data). Thus driving while intoxicated and other alcohol-related arrests do not appear to arise as a response to the total amount of drinking. Instead, such alcohol-related problems appear to be a response to the strong cultural disapproval of drinking, with the proscriptively oriented states experiencing the highest rates of disruptive behaviors related to alcohol. The findings are consistent with a social control explanation for this link.