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Social support and social norms: do both contribute to predicting leisure-time exercise?
Morris A Okun1, Linda Ruehlman, Paul Karoly
1Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA. d.rmorris@asu.edu
Objective:
To clarify the contribution of social support and social norms to exercise behavior.
Methods:
A sample of 363 college students completed a questionnaire that assessed social support and social negativity from friends, descriptive and injunctive social norms related to friends, perceived behavioral control, attitude, intention, and leisure-time exercise.
Results:
Esteem social support was the strongest predictor of total and strenuous leisure-time exercise (P < .001), and descriptive norm was a significant (P < .01 predictor of strenuous leisure-time exercise.
Conclusion:
Social support and social norms contribute independently to our understanding of variation in the frequency of strenuous leisure-time exercise.
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