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The effects of physical activity messages tailored to social setting on extraverts' and introverts' exercise-related social cognitions
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- Author / Creator
- Scheliga, Kirsten A
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This thesis explored the effects of tailoring exercise messages to social setting based on the personality domain of extraversion on participants’ exercise-related social cognitions. Messages were tailored to either exercising alone (introverted social context) or exercising with others (extraverted social context). To select participants, an extraversion domain test was conducted on a pool of 2,029 psychology students. One hundred twelve of the most extraverted and eighty-three of the most introverted students were selected to participate in the main study. The study had participants read an exercise message that was either matched or mismatched to social setting based on their level of extraversion. After reading the message, participants filled out questionnaires that assessed exercise-related social cognitions, demographics, physical activity behaviour, and personality. Eight 2 (extraverted social context message, introverted social context message) x 2 (extraverted, introverted) Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) or Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVA) were performed, with the dependent variables being intention, affective attitude, instrumental attitude, two injunctive norm and one descriptive norm variables, and two perceived behavioural control variables. Results of the main study demonstrated that there was a main effect on extraversion level for intention, affective attitude, instrumental attitude, injunctive and descriptive norms, and for self-efficacy. No main effect on extraversion level was found for controllability. For message type, there was a near significant main effect for one of the two injunctive norm variables, p = 0.05. There were no other main effects for message type. There were no significant interactions between factors. From this study, it can be seen that a difference exists between the exercise-related cognitions of introverts and extraverts, especially affective attitude, self-efficacy, and descriptive norm. It is recommended that research continue to explore these differences between introverts and extraverts in an effort to increase physical activity levels in people who are introverted in nature.
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- Graduation date
- Spring 2015
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Arts
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.