Location-Specific Social Norms and Personal Approval of Alcohol Use are Associated with Drinking Behaviors in College Students.

: Prior research on risky alcohol use points to drinking norms as predictors of drinking behavior. Most research to date has only explored global (versus context-specific) drinking norms as they relate to general drinking behavior. To better understand risky drinking behavior in students, how norms may vary across drinking environments should be considered. We sought to explore differences in drinking norms (descriptive and injunctive), personal approval, and alcohol use across specific drinking locations and how these location-specific predictors combine to best predict alcohol consumption in home/dorm locations, bars, and parties. College student drinkers ( = 115, 76% female) participated in an anonymous online cross-sectional survey in 2015-2016 assessing personal and perceived drinking experiences and attitudes across various locations. Alcohol use, descriptive norms of alcohol use, and injunctive norms of alcohol use (but not personal approval) varied across location. In addition, location-specific descriptive norms were associated with alcohol use in each drinking location, whereas location specific personal approval was associated with alcohol use only at home/dorm and bar locations. Furthermore, descriptive norms and personal approval of drinking in a given location predicted alcohol use in that same location, while norms or approval for other locations did not. Results highlight the importance of specificity of perceived drinking norms and personal approval for predicting location-specific alcohol use. These findings have implications for interventions, which may benefit from discussions of students' preferred drinking locations and providing location-specific normative feedback.