Knowledge Bank

Research shows that people's behaviors, and specifically their lack of health engagement behaviors, contributes to about 50% of all illness (Ryan 2009). Why are individuals not engaging in these health behaviors that could prevent serious illness? From the social psychological perspective, motivation is shown to be more predictive of health outcomes compared to beliefs, support, or self-efficacy (Kelly et al., 1991). Building upon the egosystem-ecosystem theory of social motivation (Crocker et al., 2017), the current research examines the association among interpersonal goals, health motivations, and health-promotion behaviors. Study 1 utilized Amazon Mechanical Turk in order to outsource surveys to 309 participants ages 22 to 70 (M = 37.78 years old). Participants completed surveys measuring interpersonal goals, health motivations, and health behaviors. Results show positive associations between both compassionate and self-image goals with motivation on health-promotion behaviors. Study 2 was an experimental design utilizing 207 participants from the student research pool at a large university (M = 19.32 years old). This study used a manipulation of compassionate and self-image goals, in which participants were assigned to either a control condition or a condition of statements designed to increase one's self-image goals or compassionate goals. The manipulation preceded the same questions from Study 1 as well as measures relating to the participant's future willingness to engage in health-promotion behaviors. The results of Study 2 replicated the correlational results from Study 1, but regression analysis showed positive associations only between compassionate goals and motivation on health-promotion behavior. The current research suggests that interpersonal motivations affect people's health behaviors and subsequent health outcomes. These results are relevant for the health field as it can aid in the understanding of how interpersonal relationships may motivate individuals to increase engagement in health-promotion behaviors.