Posting Exercise Activity on Social Media for Self-Efficacy and Well-Being

ABSTRACT

This study provided a test of social cognitive theory’s less studied constructs: social persuasion, emotional experiences, and mastery experiences, on self-efficacy and well-being among individuals who post exercise activity on social media. A national sample of participants completed an online survey and uploaded social media posts about exercise activity for content analysis. Participants completed measures of exercise self-efficacy and physical and mental well-being. Results revealed that posting about mastery experiences on social media is positively related to self-efficacy, self-efficacy is positively related to physical and mental well-being, and self-efficacy mediates the relationship between posting about mastery experiences and mental and physical well-being. The results emphasize the value of posting about mastery experiences on social media for exercise self-efficacy and well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Exercise
• social media
• social cognitive theory
• self-efficacy
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The distribution of social media connections is positively skewed due to two outliers over 10,000 (M = 1170.92, SD = 2383.37, skewness = 5.54). The median is a better measure of central tendency in this study.