Running women or women runners: Does identity salience affect intention to exercise outside and feelings of safety?

Abstract

Safety concerns for women are prevalent and influence their likelihood to exercise outside. While some women modify their exercise behaviour due to safety concerns, others exercise outside more freely. In this paper, two experiments are reported with women runners to examine whether making their identity as a runner or a woman salient changed their self‐reported likelihood of exercising outside, sense of safety and personal safety anxiety. While study 1 (n = 153) found no significant experimental effect, it revealed a trend: women whose runner identity was made salient were more likely to self‐report their willingness to exercise outside than those in the gender identity condition. Study 2 (n = 236) was conducted to examine this trend further. The second study employed a larger sample size and a more robust manipulation of social identity salience. A significant effect of the experimental condition on women's sense of safety was observed. Specifically, women in the runner identity salience condition had significantly greater feelings of safety than women in the gender identity salience condition. A similar trend emerged for self‐reported likelihood to exercise outside. These findings corroborate prior research on the impact of identity salience on intention to engage in health behaviours. They contribute to the existing body of literature on the intricate interplay between women's physical activity intentions and safety concerns. Furthermore, these findings could aid in the development of interventions to increase women's physical activity levels. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Articles from and inspired by the fifth International Conference on Social Identity and Health

“…Meanwhile, Harris and Easterbrook (2024) use an experimental paradigm to test the effectiveness of brief online social cure, group-affirmation and selfaffirmation manipulations on well-being outcomes. Additionally, Skilton, McMahon, and Muldoon (2024) report experiments showing that identity salience (woman vs. runner) impacts women's intentions to exercise outside, as well as their sense of safety during this activity.…”