Giving What a User Needs: Constructing Reference Groups in Fitness Technologies

Mobile fitness technologies are designed to support exercise behavior. A distinguishing aspect of these technologies is their social component. Though research has examined the social support effects of this social component, less attention has been given to its social comparison effects. A fundamental aspect of social comparison is the referent groups on which the comparison is based. The paper examines the relative effects on exercise behavior of social comparisons based on referent groups constructed using demographic similarity, goal similarity, and social closeness. We will test our proposed design through a randomized field experiment on a mobile fitness application.