6.1 Social Identity can be Harnessed to Promote Engagement in Physical Activity
In line with the foregoing arguments, research by Terry and Hogg [
77] found that individuals who identified strongly with a group in which exercise was normative reported greater intentions to engage in regular exercise than those who identified weakly with the group. These findings have subsequently been supported by a large body of experimental research in the broader health domain, which has shown that people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviours if, and to the extent that, these are congruent with the content of a salient social identity [
78,
79]. For example, young adults report weaker intentions to reduce alcohol consumption when their social identity as a ‘university student’ rather than as a ‘British person’ is made salient [
79]. Showing too that identity-based intentions translate into identity-congruent behaviour, Strachan et al. [
80] found that runners who identified more strongly with their running group completed a greater proportion of their runs with the group but were less confident they would continue running should the group disband. Complementing both self-determination theory [
28] and the theory of planned behaviour [
29], these findings reinforce the notion that intentions predict behaviour. Crucially, however, they extend this proposition by demonstrating that this effect is particularly strong when those intentions are structured by internalized social identities.
Other research informed by the social identity approach has extended these ideas by highlighting the importance of the structure of exercise environments in fostering identity development. Across multiple studies, Beauchamp and colleagues [
81,
82] and Dunlop and Beauchamp [
83,
84] have shown that people feel more inclined to exercise with others with whom they share membership in a particular social category (e.g. as ‘us women’). Among other things, these researchers found that age and sex are particularly common markers of shared social identity in exercise settings and that participants who perceived themselves to be similar to other group members in terms of physical characteristics (i.e. age, physical appearance, and physical condition) displayed greater levels of adherence to an exercise programme than those who perceived themselves to be dissimilar to other group members [
83].
Such findings suggest that people seek out and create ingroups (and outgroups) in exercise settings [
85] and that the opportunity to exercise with other ingroup (rather than outgroup) members is therefore an important determinant of their continued engagement in exercise [
86]. They also suggest that people who design exercise programmes need to attend to both (1) the opportunities these provide for emergent social identities and (2) the ways in which the programme allows these identities to be enacted and maintained (e.g. through interaction with ingroup members).
Supporting these assertions, a recent randomized controlled trial of the Football Fans in Training (FFIT) programme revealed a significant 4.36% difference in percentage weight loss between intervention and control groups at 12-month follow-up [
87]. FFIT is a 12-week programme delivered exclusively to overweight male football fans to improve their diet and physical activity. Crucially, participants share a common social identity as fans of the same team, with interaction between ingroup members assured. Such interaction is also facilitated within many other recently developed exercise programmes (e.g. ‘Baby Bootcamp’, ‘Karate 4 Kids’, ‘Swimming for Seniors’), suggesting the value of social identities is already well understood (albeit implicitly) by their initiators.
These various lines of research all speak to the idea that social identities can have profound implications for participation in, and adherence to, physical activity. However, as yet, the body of research that supports such claims is relatively small. Moreover, it is further limited by a predominant focus on healthy, non-clinical populations. Given the additional barriers to participation experienced by clinical populations (e.g. lack of mobility, reliance on carers), research examining the impact of social identity within clinical exercise settings (e.g. cardiac rehabilitation, obesity care, disability groups) would represent a valuable adjunct to continued non-clinical research. Indeed, such groups would represent a unique challenge to programmes designed to provide opportunities for social identities to emerge and be harnessed.
6.2 Social Identity Underpins Exercise Group Behaviour
Examination of the benefits of group exercise environments, where multiple individuals undertake the same structured exercise activity, is not new. Indeed, the effectiveness of interventions that involve individual- and group-based exercise environments have been studied extensively, with good evidence that group environments are more effective than individual environments in promoting adherence. Efforts to develop cohesiveness within exercise groups have proved particularly effective [
88]. Research across multiple settings and populations has demonstrated a range of positive outcomes from exercising in so-called ‘true groups’ where group dynamics principles have been used to increase cohesiveness [
88]. Most notably, these benefits include long-term increases in physical activity [
89‐
91] (see Estabrooks et al. [
92]; Harden et al. [
93] for recent reviews).
Research examining the effectiveness of these ‘true groups’ also reveals that successful interventions foster the development of social identity. For example, the influential model by Carron and Spink [
94] proposes that a sense of distinctiveness plays an important role in motivating members of exercise groups to engage in group-relevant activity (see also Bruner and Spink [
95,
96]). Clarifying the causal role of social identification in these outcomes, experimental research that enhanced social identification by providing group t-shirts and encouraging participants to develop a group name found this led to greater subsequent effort in a group task [
97].
Such findings suggest that social identity is a key mechanism that underpins the effectiveness of group-based programmes in exercise settings. Again, though, this hypothesis is yet to be extensively tested. In particular, there is a need for much more empirical research to explore the role that social identities play in the effectiveness of various forms of exercise groups, interventions, and programmes in the world at large (e.g. gym membership, CrossFit, parkrun).
6.3 Social Identity Underpins Effective Leadership in Exercise Settings
According to the social identity approach, it is the shift in self-categorization from a personal to a social identity that underpins social collaboration and indeed all forms of group behaviour [
73]. Extending this reasoning, social identity theorizing contends that, when people categorize themselves as members of the same group (i.e. in terms of shared social identity), this provides the basis for mutual social influence [
75]. However, at the same time, the capacity for any given individual to exert influence varies as a function of his or her capacity to represent and embody the meaning of the group in a given social context. Put slightly differently, this means that any individual group member’s ability to exert leadership depends on his or her ingroup prototypicality [
98‐
100].
More generally, from a social identity perspective, successful leadership depends on a leader’s ability to create, represent, advance, and embed a shared sense of identity among group members [
99,
101]. In line with this idea, evidence suggests that exercise leaders are more likely to have a positive role in shaping the affective states and effectiveness of group members’ behaviours if they both stand for, and stand up for, the group [
102,
103].
Although the efficacy of the social identity approach to leadership has yet to be extensively examined in exercise settings, a vast body of other research supports its applicability to this context. Benefits associated with identity leadership in other (mainly organizational) contexts include increased satisfaction [
104‐
106], effort [
107,
108], and support for leaders [
98,
109,
110] as well as reduced turnover intentions [
105,
106] and burnout [
111]. Such findings appear to have clear relevance to exercise settings. For example, higher levels of burnout have been extensively linked to motivation loss and dropout among sports team players [
112‐
115], emphasizing the value of minimizing the occurrence of burnout in exercise settings.
Finally, the social identity perspective suggests that, before an individual can lead a group, he/she first has to understand it [
100]. This suggests there would be particular value in exercise leaders (1) taking opportunities to learn about group history, culture, and functioning and (2) attending to collective group values, norms, and goals. Understanding these nuanced dimensions of group identity will enhance their capacity to be perceived as a prototypical group member and thus engender support (e.g. through demonstrating a level of effort congruent with the expectations and desires of group members) and facilitate the achievement of group and individual goals (e.g. through devising and delivering appropriate group sessions).
Again, though, empirical tests of the identity leadership approach in clinical and non-clinical exercise settings are now needed to confirm its seemingly substantial potential and to identify factors that moderate (i.e. either facilitate or stifle) its impact. Aspects of the approach may, for example, be less applicable in clinical settings (e.g. cardiac rehabilitation), where medical expertise may be favoured over leader prototypicality. However, at the same time, the relative value of leaders helping to create an appropriate identity for such a group (e.g. in which supportiveness and celebrating others’ progress is considered normative) may be substantial. These nuances await research. Indeed, the research Steffens et al. [
111] conducted in an organizational setting represented the first attempt to explore the role of social identity as a lynchpin between leadership and health. Nevertheless, Wegge et al. [
116] suggested this might “have merely exposed the tip of what is a large theoretical iceberg.” Building on these sentiments, we believe the approach has an equally significant potential in exercise contexts where health and well-being are even more centre stage.