College of Kinesiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Health Commun. 2012;27(3):284-91. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2011.585448. Epub 2011 Sep 7.
While it has been known for some time that what others do (i.e., normative behavior) can influence individual behavior, the effect of normative social influence on physical activity behavior has not been well established. The purpose of this study was to examine whether exposure to messages containing descriptive norm information about the prevalence of others' physical activity would affect individual physical activity behavior to a greater extent than exposure to nonnormative messages. Two independent studies were conducted. The first manipulated normative and nonnormative messages to examine effects on physical activity in office workers. Participants were assigned to one of four conditions (descriptive norm, health, appearance, or control) and received e-mail messages specific to their condition encouraging them to be active. It was hypothesized that participants in the descriptive norm condition would experience the greatest increase in physical activity, and the results supported this hypothesis for mild activity. A second study attempted to extend these results by examining the effect of descriptive norms on the activity behavior of university students, but no relationship was found. Typical activity levels and group identity with the reference group were suggested as possible explanations for the differing findings in these two studies.
虽然人们已经知道一段时间了，即他人的行为（即规范行为）可以影响个人行为，但规范的社会影响对体育活动行为的影响尚未得到很好的证实。本研究的目的是检验接触包含他人体育活动流行程度描述性规范信息的信息是否会比接触非规范信息更能显著影响个体的体育活动行为。进行了两项独立的研究。第一项是通过操纵规范和非规范信息，检验了对办公室工作人员体育活动的影响。参与者被分配到四个条件之一（描述性规范、健康、外貌或控制），并收到了特定于其条件的电子邮件信息，鼓励他们积极活动。研究假设描述性规范条件下的参与者将经历最大程度的体育活动增加，结果支持了这一假设，即轻度活动。第二项研究试图通过检验描述性规范对大学生活动行为的影响来扩展这些结果，但没有发现关系。建议典型的活动水平和与参考群体的群体认同是这两项研究结果不同的可能解释。
