ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of social identity and group norms in students’ health behaviours, focusing particularly on how these factors influence healthy eating and alcohol consumption. In terms of implications for health promotion, efforts to change student behaviour that deliberately or inadvertently make that identity salient may be likely to fail or even backfire given that the university student identity does not promote health behaviour. The basic premise of the social identity approach is that belonging to a social group – such as being a university student – provides members with a definition of who they are and a description and prescription of what is involved in being a group member. Campaigners in the higher education sector have long recognised the potential for social norms, particularly descriptive norms, to be implemented in behaviour change campaigns.
