STRONGER TOGETHER, IT TAKES THE BOTH OF US: RECIPROCATED CONNECTION IN A PHYSICAL ACTIVITY NORMS INTERVENTION

Abstract

There has been constant efforts to promote physical activity amongst youth through the use of social norms to facilitate a good foundation for health. Despite the utility of such interventions, social norms do not always reliably influence one’s physical activity levels. This study explores the use of social support, a strong predictor of physical activity, in addition to social norms that might help to improve these interventions. We conducted a Telegram intervention group (N = 90) consisting of norms-support, normsonly and control conditions with the aim to study how these conditions may differentially affect overall physical activity levels over the 9 weeks of experimentation. It is hypothesized that (1) the reciprocal interaction between social support and norms in the norm-support condition would predict the highest overall PA levels, and (2) social support increases perceived belongingness which translates to increased adherence to PA norms. Results indicate that social support significantly increased perceived belongingness. However, there was no significant increase in overall PA following from the increase in belongingness. This highlights the complexity of utilizing multiple social influence pathways and calls for further research on the interaction of multiple pathways. Implications of using group influence on PA behaviours are also discussed.