Effects of older adults’ social identification on psychological flourishing and exercise program adherence

Abstract

Background

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many exercise programs moved online. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which older adults’ social identification with other exercise program members contributed to their psychological flourishing and exercise program adherence.

Methods

The study represented a secondary analysis of data derived from the Seniors COVID-19 Pandemic and Exercise (SCOPE) Trial, in which older adults were randomized to a waitlist control condition or one of two online (personal v group) exercise programs. Only data from participants in the trial intervention conditions (N = 162; M_age = 73.52 years; SD = 5.61) were utilized in this secondary analysis. We assessed psychological flourishing and social identification at baseline and every two weeks, as well as program adherence over each 2-week block, for 12 weeks.

Results

Based on stepwise multilevel modeling the results revealed that older adults’ social identification with others in their respective exercise program had a direct effect on psychological flourishing (ΔR²_{Unique Marginal} = 0.063, p < .001) and program adherence (ΔR²_{Unique Marginal} = 0.014, p = .03).

Conclusions

The results highlight the value of bolstering older adults’ social identification with others in an online exercise program to support adherence and well-being.

Keywords:

• Social identification
• online exercise
• older adults
• psychological flourishing
• program adherence

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data are available from the last author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Grant # PJT 169211)