Social control and strenuous exercise among late adolescent college students: Parents versus peers as influence agents

In the context of a model of health-related social control, we compared the associations among social control strategies, affective and behavioral reactions, and exercise for parental and peer influence agents. Late adolescent college students (n = 227) completed questionnaires that focused on social control from a parent or a peer who attempted to increase their exercising. Results from this cross-sectional study revealed that most relationships in the model were similar for parent and peer influence agents, however, (a) negative social control was a stronger predictor of reactance among parents than peers; (b) positive affect was a stronger predictor of attempts to change among peers than parents; and (c) positive affect predicted frequency of strenuous exercise only among parents. Decreasing parentsʹ use of negative social control strategies and increasing adolescentsʹ positive affective reactions to parental social control agents may be keys to promoting positive lifestyle changes in late adolescence.