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AN APPLICATION OF INOCULATION THEORY TO PREVENTIVE ALCOHOL EDUCATION
Abstract
Among the factors contributing to youthful alcohol-related morbidity and mortality are: lack of skill in refuting persuasive arguments involved in drinking and driving, lack of health-enhancing attitudes toward the consequences of drinking and driving, a tendency to comply in risky alcohol-related situations and actual drinking of alcohol and accompanying of drinking drivers. This study developed and evaluated an educational unit to: (a) teach students how to refute arguments involved in alcohol-related situations, (b) modify student attitudes toward risky alcohol-related behaviors, (c) reduce student tendency to comply in drinking and driving encounters, (d) reduce student frequency of drinking and accompanying of drinking drivers, and (e) assess the utility of McGuire's Inoculation Theory within an alcohol education context. Subjects were 155 ninth-graders from one Nebraska high school. A Solomon-Four-Group Design with random assignment of subjects to groups was employed. The educational intervention consisted of: film, question/answer session, role play exercises and, slide show presentation. Dependent measures were based on: ability to refute pro-drinking and driving arguments, attitude, knowledge, likelihood to comply in risky alcohol-related situations, and actual alcohol-related behavior scores. Statistically significant results (p < .01) were found for experimental groups on refuting arguments, knowledge, compliance and actual accompanying of drinking drivers. There were no significant differences between experimental and control groups on attitudinal measures or actual drinking of alcohol. The educational intervention was designed in accordance with the tenets of Inoculation Theory. This theory proposes that resistance to persuasive arguments or messages is a function of familiarity with the messages prior to actual contact with them. Each of the education components in this study were designed to provide familiarity with pro-drinking and driving arguments. The role play exercises in particular, gave students both practice in refuting these arguments and instructor feedback on their responses. Results suggest that the inoculation logic is applicable and beneficial in a preventive alcohol education context and could be extended to other areas of youthful health behavior such as sexuality, nutrition and drug education.
Subject Area
Health education
Recommended Citation
DURYEA, PHILIP JOSEPH ELIAS, "AN APPLICATION OF INOCULATION THEORY TO PREVENTIVE ALCOHOL EDUCATION" (1982). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8217524.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8217524