Neighbourhood social capital as a moderator between individual cognitions and sports behaviour among Dutch adolescents

This study aimed to explore whether individual cognitions and neighbourhood social capital strengthen each other in their relation with engaging in sports at least three times per week. Cross-sectional analyses on data from the last wave of the YouRAction trial (2009-2010, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; baseline response: 98%) were conducted. In total 1129 had data on the last wave questionnaire (93%) and 832 of them had complete data on a self-administered questionnaire on frequency of sports participation, perceived neighbourhood social capital, cognitions (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and intention toward sport participation) and demographics. Ecometric methods were used to aggregate perceived neighbourhood social capital to the neighbourhood level. Multilevel logistic regression analyses (neighbourhood and individual as levels) were conducted to examine associations of cognitions, neighbourhood social capital and the social capital by individual cognition interaction with fit norm compliance. If the interaction was significant, simple slopes analyses were conducted to decompose interaction effects. It was found that neighbourhood social capital was significantly associated with fit norm compliance (OR: 5.40; 95% CI: 1.13-25.74). Moreover, neighbourhood social capital moderated the association of attitude, perceived behavioural control and intention with fit norm compliance. The simple slope analyses visualized that the associations of cognitions with fit norm compliance were stronger in case of more neighbourhood social capital. Hence, higher levels of neighbourhood social capital strengthen the associations of attitude, perceived behavioural control and intention in their association with fit norm compliance. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.