Moved to Move: Socially Contextualizing Women's Exercise Motivations

Author

Dusti Rae Werner, Minnesota State University - Mankato

Abstract

Using qualitative data from 11 interviews with women who exercise regularly, this research explores women's motivations to exercise, how they make social comparisons and how they self-evaluate their bodies through the social context of gender, socio-economic status and race. Women with intrinsic motivations to exercise find more positive, long term outcomes than those with extrinsic motivations. Women compare themselves to similar others, such as their peers to form self-evaluations more readily than they do media images. Respondents also indicated the importance of relationships in beginning and maintaining exercise regimes.

Advisor

Vicki Hunter

Committee Member

Emily Boyd

Committee Member

Judith Luebke

Date of Degree

2014

Language

english

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Recommended Citation

Werner, D. R. (2014). Moved to Move: Socially Contextualizing Women's Exercise Motivations [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/361/

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License