Affective experiences from exercise. Youth-adult differences and prediction of exercise behavior

Affective exercise experiences are summative, valenced memories that represent the history of associations between past instances of exercise in an individual's life and pleasant or unpleasant reactions. We used the recently developed Affective Exercise Experiences (AFFEXX) questionnaire to address two important questions in exercise psychology, namely the nature of affective exercise experiences during the childhood-adulthood transition and the relationship between affect and exercise behavior. The first study compared data from 949 adults and 607 children and adolescents, and showed that core affective exercise experiences were associated with different antecedent appraisals in the two groups. Being watched during exercise and perceptions of competence appeared to influence core affective experiences more in children and adolescents than in adults. The second study, using data from a subsample of 94 adults, showed that exercise behavior over 14 days can be predicted by pleasant core affective exercise experiences when they are congruent with strong attraction to exercise. These data highlight the value of theoretically informed research to understand the multifarious affective experiences individuals derive from exercise.