Abstract
When exercising with others, it has been reported that the more one perceives a collection of others to be a group (i.e., groupness), the greater one's adherence in that group setting (Spink et al., 2010). This relationship between groupness and adherence has been reported only in structured exercise settings. Given that individuals also report exercising with others in unstructured settings (e.g., running with friends) and different psychosocial correlates have been associated with adherence in these two settings (Spink et al., 2006), one might wonder if the effects of groupness differ across the settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between groupness and adherence in structured and unstructured activity settings. Participants from both structured (N=150) and unstructured (N=153) settings completed online questionnaires that assessed groupness (Spink et al., 2010) and adherence (attendance and frequency). SEM was used to evaluate whether groupness would predict adherence. In the structured setting, a good model fit was found: X2= 5.82, p=0.67, RMSEA=0.00 (CI: 0.00-0.08) with the squared multiple correlation (SMC) for adherence = 0.57. A good model fit also was found in the unstructured setting: X2= 10.08, p=0.26, RMSEA=0.04 (CI: 0.00-0.11). However, the SMC of 0.001 was marginal. The findings support the role of groupness in predicting adherence and suggest possible differences between structured and unstructured activity settings.
