Background: Smartphones are ideal for promoting physical activity in those with little intrinsic motivation for exercise. This study tested three hypotheses: H1 - receipt of social feedback generates higher step-counts than receipt of no feedback; H2 - receipt of social feedback generates higher step-counts than only receiving feedback on one's own walking; H3 - receipt of feedback on one's own walking generates higher step-counts than no feedback (H3).
Methods: A parallel group randomised controlled trial measured the impact of feedback on steps-counts. Healthy male participants (n = 165) aged 18-40 were given phones pre-installed with an app that recorded steps continuously, without the need for user activation. Participants carried these with them as their main phones for a two-week run-in and six-week trial. Randomisation was to three groups: no feedback (control); personal feedback on step-counts; group feedback comparing step-counts against those taken by others in their group. The primary outcome measure, steps per day, was assessed using longitudinal multilevel regression analysis. Control variables included attitude to physical activity and perceived barriers to physical activity.
Results: Fifty-five participants were allocated to each group; 152 completed the study and were included in the analysis: n = 49, no feedback; n = 53, individual feedback; n = 50, individual and social feedback. The study provided support for H1 and H3 but not H2. Receipt of either form of feedback explained 7.7 % of between-subject variability in step-count (F = 6.626, p < 0.0005). Compared to the control, the expected step-count for the individual feedback group was 60 % higher (effect on log step-count = 0.474, 95 % CI = 0.166-0.782) and that for the social feedback group, 69 % higher (effect on log step-count = 0.526, 95 % CI = 0.212-0.840). The difference between the two feedback groups (individual vs social feedback) was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Always-on smartphone apps that provide step-counts can increase physical activity in young to early-middle-aged men but the provision of social feedback has no apparent incremental impact. This approach may be particularly suitable for inactive people with low levels of physical activity; it should now be tested with this population.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5010703 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3593-9 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
The healing power of L.: how flower types influence urban residents' physiological and psychological wellbeing.
Front Psychol
February 2025
Chongqing Landscape and Gardening Research Institute, Chongqing, China.
Color and form are closely related to our daily lives and can directly and rapidly affect people's emotions, and it is of great significance to study the effects of color and form of garden plants on the body and mind of urban residents. In this study, the shrub L., which has rich germplasm resources, was selected as the research object.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConstruction and evaluation of a finger motor feedback system to improve finger dexterity.
Front Neuroergon
February 2025
Department of Radiological Technology, Faculty of Medical Technology, Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Niigata, Japan.
Introduction: Recently, a link has been established between cognitive function and hand dexterity in older adults. Declines in cognitive function have been shown to impair performance in finger tapping movements. Research suggest that hand training can improve dexterity, executive function, and cognitive function over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocial coordination perpetuates stereotypic expectations and behaviors across generations in deep multiagent reinforcement learning.
PNAS Nexus
March 2025
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3.
Despite often being perceived as morally objectionable, stereotypes are a common feature of social groups, a phenomenon that has often been attributed to biased motivations or limits on the ability to process information. We argue that one reason for this continued prevalence is that preexisting expectations about how others will behave, in the context of social coordination, can change the behaviors of one's social partners, creating the very stereotype one expected to see, even in the absence of other potential sources of stereotyping. We use a computational model of dynamic social coordination to illustrate how this "feedback loop" can emerge, engendering and entrenching role-consistent stereotypic behavior and then show that human behavior on the task generates a comparable feedback loop.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA nationwide survey on the curriculum and educational resources related to the Clinical Skills Test of the Korean Medical Licensing Examination: a cross-sectional descriptive study.
J Educ Eval Health Prof
March 2025
Department of Medical Education, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea.
Purpose: The revised Clinical Skills Test (CST) of the Korean Medical Licensing Exam aims to provide a better assessment of physicians' clinical competence and ability to interact with patients. This study examined the impact of the revised CST on medical education curricula and resources nationwide, while also identifying areas for improvement within the revised CST.
Methods: This study surveyed faculty responsible for clinical clerkships at 40 medical schools throughout Korea to evaluate the status and changes in clinical skills education, assessment, and resources related to the CST.
The coevolution of parasite virulence, and host investment in constitutive and induced defense.
J Evol Biol
March 2025
Integrative Biology, University of California - Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Given their ubiquity in nature and their importance to human and agricultural health it is important to gain a better understanding of the drivers of the evolution of infectious disease. Across vertebrates, invertebrates and plants, defence mechanisms can be expressed either constitutively (always present and costly) or induced (activated and potentially costly only upon infection). Theory has shown that this distinction has important implications to the evolution of defence due to differences in their impact on both individual fitness and the feedback of the population level epidemiological outcomes such as prevalence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!