Communal versus Individuating Exercise: Age Differences in Responses to Messaging About Group Exercise Programs

BACKGROUND: Understanding age differences in exercise preferences is important for targeting messages to groups across the life span. This study examined how younger and older adults differed in their affective and evaluative responses to statements about different group-based exercise programs. METHOD: = 125) responded to statements about exercise programs (i.e. feelings about the programs, effectiveness of the statements, and likelihood to join the programs). RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Older adults gave lower ratings to individuating versus communal programs, whereas younger adult ratings did not differ by program. As such, communally focused programs seem to be the most effective for encouraging a wide audience of age groups to participate in exercise programs.