Perceived norms are beliefs that individuals hold about the behaviors of their peers. One specific type of perceived norm is the descriptive norm, which is how one perceives the typical patterns of behavior in a given peer group, coupled with the expectation that people will behave according to these patterns. A substantial body of research has shown that perceived norms about alcohol use are associated with actual drinking behaviors among college students [1,2,3,4,5]. That is, college students tend to overestimate how many of their peers engage in heavy alcohol consumption [4], and these exaggerated views putatively act as a causal factor of heavy drinking. As a result, interventions have sought to change misperceptions of peer drinking norms [6,7,8]. This line of research has also extended to other substances, including tobacco use [9], and cannabis use [10,11], though the body of evidence is relatively smaller for these substances [12]. Still, correcting the misperceptions of peer norms during college may help individuals form more accurate perceptions of substance use, which may then help decrease future use.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the entire globe throughout the year 2020 and beyond in various domains of life, including substance use, though studies found mixed evidence on whether substance use increased or decreased during this time period [13,14]. Regardless, the pandemic created a unique opportunity to examine social norms and the extent to which they influence behaviors in the absence of social interactions. The COVID-19 pandemic was particularly disruptive for university student populations [15]. One study found that among a sample of college students (N = 507), most students reported decreased alcohol use and perceived that their peers also decreased alcohol use; the perceptions of peers’ changes in alcohol use behavior strongly related to changes in students’ own alcohol use [14]. Reductions in alcohol use may have been attributed to changing social environments (e.g., moving back home to live with parents; [16]. Research has also suggested that aspects of the pandemic (specifically stay-at-home orders and social isolation) may have resulted in an uptick in cannabis use and tobacco use for some individuals yet may have deterred use due to reduced social interactions and increased fears of sharing products [17,18]. Further, the social nature of vaping has been documented in literature [19,20,21], and this may have been disrupted during the pandemic.

While a sizable body of research has been conducted on social norms and alcohol use among college students, there is relatively less research on tobacco and cannabis use, and scarcely any research on vaping. Moreover, social norms theory posits that people form and reinforce their perceptions through observation, but there are few studies that have examined whether the association between perceptions and substance use behaviors is stable during times of crisis. To fill these gaps, we analyze a sample of college students, and in doing so, we examined whether perceived norms were related to substance use behaviors despite reduced social contact during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.