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Enduring Exercise Habits: Trending Norms

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University of Pennsylvania

Status

Completed

Conditions

Healthy

Treatments

Behavioral: Minority Norm
Behavioral: Trending Majority Norm
Behavioral: Trending Minority Norm
Behavioral: Majority Norm
Behavioral: Control

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT03627871
827107-1237

Details and patient eligibility

About

Learning that most people engage in an activity can be a powerful motivator to adoption. But are there instances in which people can similarly find motivation from learning that only a minority of others engage in a behavior? Evidence suggests this may be possible when the message is that the size of the minority has been growing in recent years. In this study, we first examine how gym members' exercise patterns shift when they are informed that the minority versus the majority of (a subpopulation of) other Americans exercise frequently. We also test how gym members are affected by learning that the number of frequent exercisers has increased in recent years.

Full description

Gym members register online to participate in a 28-day workout program. Upon registration, participants are assigned to one of five conditions (a 2 x 2 study design plus a control group). Participants are assigned to receive information about majority exercise norms or minority exercise norms, and are informed that these norms are trending up or receive no information about trends in these norms. Participants are then prompted to create a workout schedule. Over the 28-day intervention period, participants are sent text messages with information about exercise depending on their condition (i.e., majority trending exercise norms, majority exercise norms with no information about trends, minority trending exercise norms or minority norms with no information about trends), workout reminders before their scheduled workouts, and weekly emails with additional exercise information related to their assigned condition and their schedule. Participants assigned to the control condition are prompted to create a workout schedule and receive text message reminders, information about exercise that is unrelated to social norms, and weekly emails with exercise information unrelated to social norms or trends and their workout schedule. All participants earn points for participating and for each day that they go to the gym which can be redeemed for an Amazon cash gift card after the end of the intervention period.

Enrollment

2,000 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18+ years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • Has 24 Hour Fitness gym membership

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose

Supportive Care

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

None (Open label)

2,000 participants in 5 patient groups

Trending majority norm
Experimental group
Description:
Participants receive information about exercise-related norms that apply to the majority of the population and are told this norm has been increasing recently.
Treatment:
Behavioral: Trending Majority Norm
Non-trending majority norm
Experimental group
Description:
Participants receive information about exercise-related norms that apply to the majority of the population but are not told about recent trends.
Treatment:
Behavioral: Majority Norm
Trending minority norm
Experimental group
Description:
Participants receive information about exercise-related norms that apply to a minority of the population and are told this norm has been increasing recently
Treatment:
Behavioral: Trending Minority Norm
Non-trending minority norm
Experimental group
Description:
Participants receive information about exercise-related norms that apply to a minority of the population but are not told about recent trends.
Treatment:
Behavioral: Minority Norm
Control
Experimental group
Description:
Participants receive information about exercise unrelated to social norms or recent trends.
Treatment:
Behavioral: Control

Trial contacts and locations

1

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Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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