Daily associations of three types of social control with physical activity, reactance, and mood in romantic couples:...

Romantic partners influence each other's moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) through social control (intentional influence). Non-autonomy-limiting strategies (persuasion) may yield favourable outcomes, whereas autonomy-limiting strategies (pressure) may provoke reactance and fail. Although strategies likely lie on a continuum of how autonomy-limiting they are, research typically treats them dichotomously. We introduce plan-related pushing as an intermediate strategy. We examine daily dyadic associations of control with MVPA, mood, and reactance.

Thirty-eight inactive couples attempting to increase MVPA wore accelerometers and completed daily questionnaires for 55 days. We employed dyadic Bayesian multilevel modelling.

When individuals experienced more persuasion, they were more likely to engage in (self-reported) MVPA. When individuals experienced more pressure or plan-related pushing, reactance was more likely. When individuals' partners experienced more control (any type), individuals were more likely to engage in MVPA, but these links disappeared when accounting for social support. No robust associations for mood emerged.

While persuasion may promote MVPA, both pressure and plan-related pushing may backfire. Future studies should further evaluate the utility of conceptualising control strategies along a continuum of autonomy-limitation. Moreover, future research should continue to disentangle dyadic effects of support and control on health behaviour change in close relationships.