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(How) Does Affect Influence the Formation of Habits in Exercise?
Susanne Weyland1, Emily Finne2, Janina Krell-Roesch1
1Department of Health Education and Sport Psychology, Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Frontiers in Psychology
|November 16, 2020
Summary
Positive feelings after exercise can boost habit formation, even if repetition alone isn't enough. Focusing on affective states is key for maintaining exercise habits.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Science
- Exercise Psychology
- Health Behavior Research
Background:
- Habitual exercise is crucial for long-term health behavior maintenance.
- Existing research on habit formation lacks longitudinal data on affective factors, particularly post-exercise states.
- Understanding affective determinants is vital for promoting sustained physical activity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if behavior frequency enhances exercise automaticity.
- To investigate if positive affect enhances exercise automaticity.
- To examine if positive affect moderates the link between behavior frequency and automaticity.
Main Methods:
- A 13-week longitudinal study followed 226 university students attending weekly exercise classes.
- Behavior frequency (class attendance) and affective valence (Feeling Scale) were recorded weekly.
- Automaticity of the decision to attend was assessed, with data analyzed using two-level modeling.
Main Results:
- Cumulative class attendance did not significantly increase the automaticity of attending exercise sessions.
- Positive affective valence significantly enhanced automaticity; higher average valence correlated with greater automaticity.
- No significant moderation effect of affect was found on the relationship between behavior frequency and automaticity.
Conclusions:
- While not statistically significant, behavior repetition may contribute to exercise habit formation.
- Positive affective states post-exercise appear beneficial for building exercise instigation habits.
- Emphasizing both repetition and positive affective responses is recommended for health behavior maintenance strategies.
Keywords:
affectautomaticitybehavior changebehavior maintenanceexercisehabit formationphysical activityMore Related Videos
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