Does habit strength moderate affective responses to movement-related behaviors among older adults?

Physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) are associated with affective feeling states in older adults, though the strength and direction of associations vary. This study used the Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to determine how habit strength affects affective responses to movement behaviors. Older adults completed a 4-day EMA protocol with 10 randomly delivered, smartphone assessments per day while simultaneously wearing two activity monitors recording PA and SB. Multilevel models assessed whether habit strength moderated positive and negative activated and deactivated affective responses following movement behaviors. Older adults with stronger PA habits had a more positive within-person association between steps in the 30 minutes before the prompt and positive deactivated affect at the prompt compared to older adults with weaker PA habits (B = 0.001, p < 0.05). Older adults with stronger SB habits had a more positive within-person association between time spent sitting in the 30 and 60 minutes before the prompt and negative activated affect at the prompt compared to older adults with weaker SB habits (30 min: B = 0.001, p < 0.05; 60 min: B = 0.001, p < 0.05). PA habits may enhance positive affective responses to PA further encouraging engagement in PA, while SB habits exacerbate negative affective responses to SB in older adults.