How physical activity shapes, and is shaped by, adolescent friendships

Kayla de la Haye, Garry Robins, Philip Mohr and Carlene Wilson

Social Science & Medicine, 2011, vol. 73, issue 5, 719-728

Abstract: The current study explored the role of school-based friendship networks in adolescents' engagement in physical activity (PA). It was hypothesized that similar participation in PA would be a basis for friendship formation, and that friends would also influence behavior. Whether these processes were mediated through cognitive mechanisms was also explored. Self-reported participation in PA, cognitions about PA, and friendship ties to grade-mates were measured in two cohorts of Australian grade eight students (N = 378; M age = 13.7) three times over the 2008 school year. Interdependence between the friendship networks and PA was tested using stochastic actor-based models for social networks and behavior. The results showed that participants tended to befriend peers who did similar amounts of PA, and subsequently emulated their friends' behaviors. Friends' influence on PA was not found to be mediated through adolescents' cognitions about PA. These findings show that there is a mutually dependent relationship between adolescent friendship networks and PA; they highlight how novel network-based strategies may be effective in supporting young people to be physically active.

Keywords: Australia; Physical; activity; Adolescents; Friendships; Social; networks; Stochastic; actor-based; model; Social; influence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611003790
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:5:p:719-728

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().