How Runners Keep Running: Personal Culture and the Art of Sustaining Motivation

• In Event: 20420 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 4: Investigating Cultural Ideas

Abstract

Many mundane tasks are not inherently pleasurable or are unpleasant some of the time, yet people choose to do them and continue even when the task is unnecessary. In such moments, how do people sustain their motivation? This work addresses this question with a study of runners, focusing on how they use personal culture (in the form of mental strategies), to sustain the motivation to keep going. We identify the mental strategies runners use and analyze patterns in how they are distributed and used, with particular attention to variation across different running environments and runners with different levels of expertise. The work contributes to ongoing research on culture and motivation, culture and cognition, and materiality.

Authors

• Michael Lee Wood, Brigham Young University-Provo

• Emma Reed, Brigham Young University