Over the years there have been a few studies that explored the role social communities played in health and fitness.  They found that communities were hugely effective at helping people to quit smoking.

Could the same apply to encouraging fitness?  That was the question posed by a recent study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers developed a website whereby participants enrolled in a series of free exercise classes at the local gym.  Half of the group received a regular stream of motivational messages from the gym, whilst the other half were ignored by the gym.

Official versus unofficial support

These people were, however, placed in a group alongside six of their peers.  The impromptu group were anonymous to one another, but nevertheless shared their progress with the group.

This included both their fitness progression but also the kind of activities they undertook.

Both groups, alongside a third control group, went about their business for 13 weeks, at which point the researchers assessed progress.

Those in the group receiving regular support from the gym showed an initial bump in performance, but this quickly wore off and they rapidly reverted to their normal behavior.

Those in the social group however saw tremendous gains in motivation.  They started off with a motivational boost, and this continued to grow as the experiment commenced.

Group dynamics

The researchers built upon previous work undertaken by the team into group dynamics.  Traditionally there is a mixture of positive and negative messages within a group, but in this exercise study, the messages were nearly all positive in nature.

“We were able to use the positive signals to form a reinforcing loop that pushed everyone to exercise more,” the authors say.

Of course, we’ve long known about the influence of our peers on how we behave, but this does provide further reminders that this extends to online networks too.

“While promotional messaging remains one of the standard ways of encouraging healthy behavior, it is also quite expensive,” the authors say. “What our results show is that you don’t necessarily need to generate new media content in order to reach people. You just have to put people into the right kind of social environment where they can interact with each other, and even anonymous social interaction will create behavior change.”

The next step is to explore why social networks are so effective at encouraging positive behaviors.  You can find out more about the research in the video below.