SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS AND EXERCISE SELF-EFFICACY IN LATE-LIFE

Self-efficacy, or assessments about one's ability to carry out particu lar tasks, has been shown to play a central role in the adoption and m aintenance of exercise. The relationship between exercise self-efficac y and socioeconomic status (SES), however has not been formally develo ped or tested, and the implications of SES for exercise interventions are not known. We hypothesize pathways through which income, education and occupation affect self-efficacy and capitalize on the availabilit y of responses from 1944 older HMO enrollees to investigate the direct and indirect associations of SES indicators with exercise self-effica cy. Direct associations of age and education are found. Indirect assoc iations of age, income, education, and occupation operate primarily th rough previous exercise experience, satisfaction with amount of walkin g, depression, and outcome expectations. The potentially modifiable na ture of exercise outcome expectations (i.e., belief in the benefits of exercise) in combination with its strong association with exercise se lf-efficacy argue in support of greater consideration of its role in a ttempts to improve exercise self-efficacy.