RESEARCH ARTICLE
Health-Related Social Control Influences the Physical Activity of College Students
Kelly A. Cotter1, *, Jennifer A. Mendiola2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 12
First Page: 181
Last Page: 187
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-12-181
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101912010181
Article History:
Received Date: 05/04/2019Revision Received Date: 09/08/2019
Acceptance Date: 27/08/2019
Electronic publication date: 30/09/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective:
To examine the impact of health-related social control tactics on the physical activity behavior of college students.
Participants:
110 undergraduates (74% women) recorded their naturalistic behavior across eight consecutive days between March and May of 2010.
Methods:
A short-term longitudinal daily diary survey examined daily self-reports of received health-related social control (the direct regulation of a target’s health behaviors by a social partner) and minutes engaged in physical activity.
Results:
Multilevel modeling according to a two-level structure in which observations (Level 1) were nested within individuals (Level 2) revealed that positive social control for exercise (e.g., encouragement) had a positive effect on physical activity participation, both within-persons (intra-individual level) and between-persons (inter-individual level). Negative social control (e.g., nagging) had no effect on physical activity participation.
Conclusion:
The present results suggest that individuals should employ positive social control tactics when attempting to enhance the physical activity behaviors of college students.