Reciprocal within-day associations between incidental affect and exercise: An EMA study

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Science
• Exercise Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Existing research indicates that daily mood (incidental affect) influences exercise behavior.
• Separate literature suggests exercise positively impacts mood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the reciprocal relationship between incidental affect and exercise behavior within a single day.
• To determine if mood impacts subsequent exercise, and if exercise impacts subsequent mood on the same day.

Main Methods:

• A six-month study involving 59 low-active, overweight adults (ages 18-65).
• Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) used for real-time recording of self-reported exercise and affective valence (Feeling Scale).
• Within-subjects cross-lagged, autoregressive modeling analyzed daily data.

Main Results:

• Participants were more likely to exercise on days with higher positive incidental affect earlier in the day (b = .58, p < .01).
• Participants were more likely to experience positive incidental affect on days they exercised (b = .26, p < .01).
• The effect of positive affect on exercise was significantly stronger than the effect of exercise on affect (t = 23.54, p < .01).

Conclusions:

• Daily positive affect and exercise behavior exhibit a reciprocal, positive feedback loop.
• Feeling good appears to be a stronger immediate predictor of exercise than exercise is of feeling good within the same day.