Date of Award
Winter 3-21-2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Kimberly Quinn, PhD
Second Advisor
Joseph Mikels, PhD
Abstract
Motivating people of different ages to exercise is an important step toward ensuring as much of the population reaches the recommended physical activity guidelines for the protection of everyone’s health. Generally, younger and older adults are differentially motivated due to shifts in goals, such that younger adults are focused on preparatory goals for the future and older adults on emotionally meaningful goals in the current moment (Carstensen, 2021). It should then follow that younger and older adults have different preferences for exercise. Understanding these differences is important for effectively designing exercise programs to target messages to various groups across the life span. Following the predictions of socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 2006, 2021), these studies were designed to provide an understanding of how differences in goals of younger and older adults might impact their affective and evaluative responses to different group-based exercise programs. To do so, we measured younger and older adults’ reactions to statements about different group-based exercise programs (i.e., how they felt about the programs, how effective the statements were, and how likely they would be to join those programs). Younger and older adults did not differ when rating socially-motivated exercise programs. However, the most individual-motivated exercise programs were more appealing for younger than older adults. These results were modified by both self-efficacy and physical activity level, such that older adults with low self-efficacy and low in physical activity were less likely to respond positively to nearly any program than younger adults low in these measures, but this was not the case for older and younger adults high in self-efficacy and physical activity levels. Age differences in this domain have relevant implications for messaging which aims to target different age groups and could help to inform the design of group exercise programs.
Recommended Citation
Adams, Sydni N., "Understanding Age Differences in the Effects of Group Exercise Messaging" (2025). College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations. 564.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/csh_etd/564
SLP Collection
no