Chapter 7:
SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
CORRELATES OF PHYSICAL
ACTIVITY
People to see and places to go
Chapter 7: Aims
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overview social environments and correlates of physical
activity
consider exercise leadership
illustrate the importance of group climate in the
development of exercise motivation, including group
cohesion and collective efficacy
consider the role of social and family support in the
encouragement of physical activity
summarise the key environmental factors thought to be
associated with physical activity, including
environmental aesthetics and transport
Gender & Socio-Economic Status
• There are consistent positive trends for
leisure-time physical activity in adults to be
associated with:
• male gender
• higher levels of education and socioeconomic status (SES)
• white ethnicity
Socio-Economic Status
• Higher levels of SES being associated with
higher levels of physical activity may be
related to the economic and social access to
various activities, such as clubs, facilities or
physical activities requiring transport
• The influence of SES may differ across
different physical activities
Changes in time spent on activities
for 3 age groups, 1981-1997
200
100
0
Mins/ -100
week -200
Age 3-5
Age 6-8
Age 9-12
-300
-400
-500
-600
Sports/outdoors
Playing
Sturm, 2005)
Family influences on physical
activity: Children
Review
Population
studied
Family construct
Association
with physical
activity
Sallis et al
(2000)
Children aged
4-12 yr
Parent PA
Indeterminate
Parent PA with child
Indeterminate
Benefits of PA perceived by
parent
None (based
on 2 studies)
Parent barriers to PA
None (based
on 2 studies)
Parental encouragement
(persuasion)
None
Parent transports child
None
Parent pay fees for PA
None
Family influences on physical
activity: Adolescent girls
Review
Population
studied
Family construct
Association
with physical
activity
Biddle et al.
(2005)
Adolescent
girls
Family and parental support
Positive
(small-tomoderate
association)
Mother’s PA
Indeterminate
Father’s PA
Positive
(small-tomoderate
association)
Family influences on physical
activity: Adults
Review
Population
studied
Family construct
Association
with physical
activity
Trost et al.
(2002)
Adults
Past family influences
None
Social support from
spouse/family
Clearly
positive
The Stability and ‘Tracking’ of
Physical Activity from Childhood
• If the influence of the family is generally
positive, one might expect such social
influences to have lasting effects
• There is an assumption that behaviours
learned in childhood and adolescence will
transfer ('track') into adulthood
• evidence to substantiate this is mixed
Tracking: Example research 1
• Engstrom (1991) followed 2000 Swedish youths from 15 to 30 years
of age.
• 3 conditions used an indicators of early (aged 15 years) activity
involvement. These were:
 at least 4 hours per week of sports or physical activities at age 15
years
 being a member of a sports club at 15 years of age
 having a high grade in physical education in the eighth grade (in
Sweden).
• An index of 'psychological readiness' at the age of 30 was then
calculated from "attitude towards keep-fit activities and self-esteem
concerning the body and sports capabilities".
Percentage of individuals with high psychological
readiness for physical activity at age 30 yrs
according to indicators of sport experience at 15 yrs
(Engstrom, 1991)
70
60
50
%
40
30
20
10
0
0
1
Women
2
Men
3
Tracking: Example research 2
• Telama et al. (2005) reporting 21-years of follow up data
from the ‘Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns’ study
• correlations obtained between measures of physical
activity for 9, 12 ,15, 18 and 21 year follow-ups
• tracking declined with time and generally was low-tomoderate in strength
• some association was still evident after 21 years.
• high participation in organised sport as a youth was
associated with a 5-6 times greater likelihood of activity in
adults compared with those with little sport involvement
Tracking coefficients from the Cardiovascular
Risk in Young Finns Study (Telama et al., 2005)
0.6
0.5
0.4
Tracking
0.3
coefficient
0.2
Males
Females
0.1
0
9-yr
12-yr
15-yr
18-yr
21-yr
Evidence on the stability of physical
activity
• The statistical relationship between physical activity in
adulthood and activity in childhood or adolescence is lowto-moderate
• Slightly stronger effects can be found for the nature of
early life experiences in physical activity as precursors of
adult physical activity, but still these effects appear small.
• The small effects identified may be real or the result of
other factors, such as motor competence or early
maturation, with children experiencing early success less
likely to quit later on.
• Research into tracking must account for the quality of
childhood experiences in physical activity
Social Support
• Social support is usually seen in terms of
Emotional support
Informational support
Material (instrumental) support
Social Support: Adults
• Trost et al’s (2002) review showed:
• a clear positive effect on physical activity
for social support from friends/peers and
family/spouse
• evidence for the influence of one’s GP
(family physician), but not for social
support from staff/instructor
Social Support: Children
• For children aged 4-12 years, Sallis et al
(2000) found:
• no effect on physical activity of ‘peer
influence’
• no effect on physical activity of ‘subjective
norm’
Social Support: Adolescents
• For adolescents, Sallis et al. (2000) reported:
 a clearly positive association for support from
significant others
 no associations with peer modeling or teacher
support/modeling
 an indeterminate association with subjective
norms/social influence
• For adolescent girls, Biddle et al. (2005) found:
 an indeterminate association for peer
involvement/support
Exercise leadership
• The application of leadership theory from sport to
exercise is long overdue
• Chelladurai's model may be a suitable start (see
next figure)
• Martin and Lutes (2000) showed that exercise
participants taught by a leader using an ‘enriched’
leadership style had lower levels of social anxiety
in the class than those taught by a leadership
adopting a ‘bland’ style.
SITUATION
•eg. Formal
class vs. social
setting
BEHAVIOUR
REQUIRED
FOR THE
SITUATION
LEADER
•personal
characteristics
ACTUAL
BEHAVIOUR
GROUP
MEMBERS
•personal/group
characteristics
BEHAVIOUR
PREFERRED
BY GROUP
MEMBERS
PERFORMANCE
•satisfaction
•behaviour
Group climate and physical activity
• Perceptions of the 'motivational climate' can be
categorised as ‘mastery’ or ‘performance’
• A ‘mastery climate’ is one in which the group
members perceive that the dominant ethos is one
of:
 self-improvement
 where mistakes are viewed as part of learning
 praise may be given for high effort regardless of the
actual outcome
Group climate and physical activity
• Perceptions of the 'motivational climate' can be
categorised as ‘mastery’ or ‘performance’
• A ‘performance climate’ is one where group
members:
 are often compared to each other
 where praise will usually only be given for normatively
superior performance
 where anxiety is often felt about making mistakes
Relationships between mastery (M) and
performance (P) climates with positive (+)
and negative (-) affect
0.8
0.6
0.4
Effect
size
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
M+
(Ntoumanis & Biddle, 1999)
M-
P+
Climate
P-
Group cohesion and physical activity
• “the need for interpersonal attachment is a
fundamental human motive – a fact that has
important implications for promoting
adherence in exercise and physical activity”
Carron et al. (1999)
Group cohesion and physical activity
• Group cohesion is:
the forces attracting members to
remain in the group as well as forces
preventing group disruption
(Carron & Hausenblas, 1998)
Social influence and exercise
• Key findings from a meta-analysis by Carron et al. (1996):
• moderate effects on exercise adherence for the variables of
task cohesion, the exercise class leader, and social support
from important others and family
• intention to exercise and exercise affect were positively
associated with family and important others
• support from family members was stronger when
involving exercise prescription from a health professional
in comparison to other exercise programmes.
Social influence and exercise
• A meta-analysis by Burke et al. (2006)
showed:
• that exercise groups where team building
strategies were used to enhance cohesion
had superior adherence when compared to
standard exercise groups.
Principles for promoting group
adherence in exercise
• Distinctiveness: feelings of group distinctiveness,
such as wearing group T-shirts or logos, can
increase feelings of cohesion
• Group norms: cohesion can increase by having
group members share common expectations
• Interaction and communication: cohesion and
interaction between members of the group are
positively correlated.
Carron et al. (1999)
Exercise group efficacy
"people do not live their lives in social
isolation. Many of the challenges and
difficulties they face reflect group problems
requiring sustained collective effort to
produce any significant change"
Bandura (1986)
ENVIRONMENTAL
CORRELATES OF PHYSICAL
ACTIVITY
Environmental influences on
physical activity: adults
• Results from Humpel et al. (2002) review:
• significant associations with physical
activity for:
ease of access to facilities
having places near by to be active
perceived positive aesthetics of the local area
(such as enjoyable scenery)
• No association with weather and safety
Environmental influences on
physical activity: Young people
• Results from review by Sallis et al. (2000):
• consistent associations between physical
activity and:
programme/facility access (children)
time outdoors (children)
‘opportunities to exercise’ (adolescents)
Transport as an environmental
influence
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Likely influences on physical activity:
signage
cycle storage
accessibility of public transport
street design that includes separate
pedestrian or cycle paths
• safety issues
Urban design and land-use policies
• A recent systematic review by Heath and
colleagues (2006) showed that studies
addressing issues of urban design and landuse policies were associated with greater
levels of physical activity
Physical environmental factors that might
influence walking (Pikora et al., 2003)
Environmental feature
Elements
Items and examples
Functional
Walking surface
Path type, surface type,
maintenance, continuity
Streets
Width
Traffic
Volume, speed, traffic
control devices
Permeability
Street design,
intersection design and
distance, other access
points
Personal
Lighting, surveillance
Traffic
Crossings, verge width
Streetscape
Tress, garden
maintenance,
cleanliness, pollution,
parks
Views
Sights, architecture
Facilities
Parks, shops
Safety
Aesthetic
Destination
NICE guidance on
Promoting and creating
built or natural
environments that
encourage and support
physical activity
http://www.nice.org.uk/
Professor Nanette Mutrie
Chaired this NICE programme development group
Chapter 7: Conclusions 1
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a number of social factors are related to participation in physical
activity
sibling physical activity, parental support, and father’s physical
activity are associated with physical activity in adolescents
social support from spouse and family are associated with physical
activity in adults
insufficient evidence is available to conclude about the most
appropriate way of studying exercise leadership
research in sport settings suggests that Chelladurai's
multidimensional model of leadership has many characteristics that
might be appropriate for future research in exercise
extrapolating from studies in sport and physical education, mainly
with children, the development of a mastery motivational climate in
exercise classes and groups appears to be desirable for motivational
and other positive psychological outcomes
Chapter 7: Conclusions 2
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research on group cohesion has shown that exercise group dropouts
have lower perceptions of cohesion than those who stay
there is a positive relationship between exercise behaviour and some
social influence variables, such as family support
the notion of collective efficacy in exercise groups is largely
untested, although initial data are promising in showing positive
effects for collective efficacy on exercise performance
significant associations with physical activity have been found for
ease of access to facilities, having places near by to be active, and
perceived positive aesthetics of the local area
studies addressing issues of urban design and land-use policies show
that such factors can be associated with greater levels of physical
activity
four key environmental features that should be taken into account in
physical activity research include functional, safety, aesthetic and
destination considerations