Table 4:

Perceived social influences on health behavior: emergent subthemes, SCT constructs, and selected quotes

Family Influences on Diet
Subtheme	SCT Construct	Selected Quotes
Food Choice Negotiations	Barriers and Opportunities	“For me, my husband doesn’t want to change the way we’ve been eating. He likes the meat and potatoes. It’s not a meal, unless it’s that. Like if I were to give him rice and a nice salad, he would think he was bein’ punished, you know.” (Woman, 40–64) “When your wife is staring you down, that’s pretty good motivation to like put the chips down, and start, ya know, pick up the celery.”(Man, 40–64)
Health Concerns	Observational Learning	“My wife is pre-diabetic, so that changed her whole eating habits, which led to the rest of us [changing too], you know.” (Man, 40–64) “In our family, I mean it was imperative that we cut down salt because of my husband’s high blood pressure. So I hardly, I never salt things. If people come to my house they have to get the salt shaker if they need it. But I use more spices too.” (Woman, 65+)
Living Alone	Social Support	“You’re not thinking of your heart; you’re just thinking of what you like to eat… And when you’re our ages and you live alone, what else the hell is there?” (Woman, 65+) “I’m often alone… and I don’t make a point to prepare healthy, I just open the fridge and what’s in there I use.” (Woman, 65+)
Peer Influences on Diet
Food Centric-Events	Normative Beliefs	“This country out here has way too many lunches… everybody is so great about putting food out. You know, when you go to visit they bring out cookies and bars, and all sorts of stuff…very hospitable… until all you can do is put on weight.”(Woman, 65+) “I think what we always stumble on is anything we do socially, we always do with some friends and it’s either go to their house for dinner or go out for dinner… You know, when you go to somebody else’s house, I mean, you just eat what’s… I mean, it’s rude to pick… So you know, you’re doing well and all the sudden you get these roadblocks, and that’s hard for us.” (Woman, 40–64)
Limited Networks	Barriers and Opportunities	“[If] you wanna eat healthy…you pretty much have to change your friends at that point in time. And like in [this town], who you gonna change your friends to? Ya know, it’s not like you have nine hundred thousand other people that you can go out with and visit with.” (Man, 40–64)
Family Influences on Physical Activity
Family Obligations	Normative Beliefs	“I’ve seen some women that age that work all day and they’ll come home and change into their exercise stuff and there’s kids at home and their husband’s coming home real soon or is home and they just go. And I think, ‘How can they do that?’ I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it. I, I’d feel like, I have to be here for my kids, we have to have supper.” (Woman, 40–64)
Pets	Social Support	“Anyone who’s ever had a dog, or has a dog, especially - I had a Australian Shepard and I’ve had dogs since before I could walk - but they’re gonna get you up and say, “It’s time to go for a walk, come on.” So it keeps you walking, it keeps you busy taking care of them, you know. They really help.” (Woman, 65+)
Peer Influences on Physical Activity
Support and Accountability	Social Support	“For me, myself, I find that I am more apt to exercise if I am in a group or have an organized program rather than saying I’m gonna do it on my own. Because some days you do it and some days it’s just very convenient not to do it.” (Woman, 65+) “I had a friend and, you know, if I didn’t want to go, she did, and if she didn’t want to go, I did. So you have some kind of network, if you will to say, you know, “Let’s get. Quit your whining, get in the car!” (Woman, 40–64) “That’s why I think the group would be kind of cool to get together with… to get together as a group and just share some ideas and… And then you have to figure out in your day, “OK, instead of climbing up the tractor once, I’ll do it four times.” (Man, 40–64)
Social Connectedness	Barriers and Opportunities	“To me, I do a lotta my walking in Bozeman, because the stores are big. And, just walking Albertsons and Town and Country is not enough. I like to be where there’s other people. I don’t like to exercise or walk alone.” (Woman, 65+)
Family Influences on Tobacco Use
Health Concerns	Observational Learning	“[My prompt] was just family members that smoked and had cancer, as far as just lung cancer. So that is when I quit.” (Man, 40–64) “My husband quit when our toddler daughter was gumming his cigarette butts. He said, “Ok, I’m done.” And it was just, “Ok, I’ll use that money for tools instead” (Woman, 65+)
Role Modelling	Observational Learning	“I mean my husband’s mother, she quit when she was 70 some years old. She quit smoking and my husband, and my sister-in-law, his sister, they both still smoked. And finally one day she said, “well if my70-year-old mom can quit, I guess I should be able to quit.” And she did. And it wasn’t shortly thereafter that my husband quit.” (Woman, 65+)
Peer Influences on Tobacco Use
Social Pressure and Norms	Normative Beliefs	“And what I see which saddens me is there’s a younger community smoking rather than the older community. I think that most of our age group and even probably for 40s on up have [quit] … I don’t know if it was they were taught that or… But the young kids are getting now into the smoking.” (Woman, 65+)
Support and Accountability	Social Support	“It’s a lot easier to go through it (quitting) with somebody else, than by yourself.” (Woman, 40–64)