The Roles of Social Comparison Orientation and Regulatory Focus in College Students’ Responses to Fitspiration Posts on Social Media: Cross-sectional Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Information shared via social media influences college students' self-perceptions and behavior, particularly, "fitspiration" posts (ie, images of healthy food, people exercising, or fitness quotations). There are mixed findings regarding the mental health implications of fitspiration and its potential to motivate healthy behavior. Individual differences such as social comparison orientation and regulatory focus could aid in determining for whom fitspiration may be helpful versus harmful, though these characteristics have received limited attention in terms of students' fitspiration perceptions. OBJECTIVE: This cross-sectional study examined associations between students' fitspiration use (ie, intentional versus unintentional exposure while using social media), response tendencies (ie, feelings about the self and motivation to be physically active), social comparison orientation, and regulatory focus. METHODS: College students (N=344; 239/344, 69.5% women) completed an electronic survey in which they self-reported demographic information, the frequency of their social media use, exposure to fitspiration posts, typical feelings in response to fitspiration posts, and typical motivation for physical activity after viewing fitspiration posts. They also completed validated self-report measures of social comparison orientation and regulatory focus. RESULTS: College students reported frequent exposure to fitspiration posts on social media and that they experienced negative feelings in response to these posts more often than positive feelings. Average motivation for physical activity was rated as feeling motivated "some of the time." However, students who reported more negative feelings after viewing fitspiration also reported greater motivation to be physically active after exposure. Associations between the frequency of intentional fitspiration use and motivation for physical activity after viewing fitspiration posts were moderated by social comparison orientation (b=-0.01, P=.03) but not by regulatory focus (b=-0.002, P=.67). CONCLUSIONS: Negative feelings about the self may be motivating for students with weak social comparison orientation, as fitspiration may highlight a discrepancy between one's real and ideal self that does not prompt dejection or disengagement. However, negative feelings for prevention-focused students might not be as motivating because there are no salient negative models to avoid. Further research into these associations is warranted and could inform future efforts to promote student health and well-being during college.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".