Persuasive Determinants of Physical Activity in Adults: Cultural Differences and the Moderating Effect of Gender and Age

Evidence shows that physical inactivity is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. A growing variety of behavioural change interventions have been developed to promote physical activity behaviour, and have shown success. However, most of these apps apply a one-size-fits-all approach focusing on individualistic cultures and neglecting collectivist cultures. We investigate the possible cultural differences between individualism and collectivism on how the behavioral determinants influence people’s physical activity behaviour. We conducted a large-scale study of 430 participants from collectivist and individualist cultures using the extended Health Belief Model (HBM). We also assess the moderating effect of age and gender. We map these determinants to their corresponding persuasive strategies that can be used in operationalizing them in behaviour change applications for promoting physical activity. Our findings show that Social influence and Cue to action are the strongest determinants of physical activity for collectivists. Whereas in individualists, Cue to action, and Self-efficacy are the strongest determinants of physical activity. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings and offer design guidelines for persuasive interventions that both appeal to a broad audience and are tailored to a particular group depending on their gender and age group.