This two year project is funded by a grant from the Department of Education. We examine the behaviors of college students on their 21 st birthday in the downtown Blacksburg environment, including alcohol consumption, activities they participate in on their birthday, perceptions of social norms, etc. Research assistants contact participants for the study, administer surveys, and collect BACs downtown. This fall we will also create an intervention package to reduce consumption of high-risk drinkers. The package includes a planning guide and a 21 st birthday card.

CABS has developed a Social Influence Survey (SIS) designed to measure individual differences in one's susceptibility to various types of social influence. The survey consists of seven scales; 1) Consistency, 2) Reciprocity, 3) Conformity, 4) Ingratiation, 5) Authority, 6) Scarcity and 7) Novelty. We have established norms for each of these scales, and the current focus of our research is to design innovative experiments that will test the criterion and prediction validity of the SIS.

Research on this project includes a wide range of topics with a grant-funded driving simulator located on the second floor of the Psychology department. For example, we have studies the use and dangers of cell phone use while driving. In addition, creative brainstorming will be necessary to create follow-up experiments for current or future use. Other project topics that may be studied include parent-teen coaching of positive driving behaviors, the effect of music on driving, smoking cessation and driving, etc.

Click it-or-Ticket is a program design to evaluate the effectivness of two intervention techniques to increase safety-belt use.  One is the Flash-for-Life technique, pioneered by Dr. Geller in 1984; the other is the highly publicised Click it-or-Ticket campaign.  Research assistants stand outsie and "flash" unbuckled drivers with the respective signs to see which one is more effective at increasing safety-belt use.

CABS is working in collaboration with Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem to improve the safety of their medication ordering process. We have recently applied for funding by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to explore interventions to increase physician use of a new computerized medication ordering system called ePOM. Our efforts will include data collection by CABS undergrads on the compliance and efficiency of the existing paper-based medication ordering systems at both Lewis-Gale Medical Center and Montgomery Regional Hospital . We will evaluate the ePOM system in comparison with the existing paper-based systems, and use the data we collect as a component of an intervention to increase the use of ePOM.