Affective and cognitive predictors of affective response to exercise: Examining unique and overlapping variance

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2016.07.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Anticipated and anticipatory affect both predict affective response in-exercise.

  • Anticipatory affect predicts affective response immediately post-exercise.

  • Self-efficacy fails to predict affective response beyond the affective factors.

Abstract

Objectives

Affective response to exercise has been suggested as an important factor in determining regular exercise. However, it is unclear the extent to which anticipatory affect factors (affective attitudes, implicit associations, and affective associations), anticipated affect factors (anticipated regret, anticipated pride), and cognitive factors (self-efficacy, intentions) explain overlapping or unique variance in affective response to exercise.

Design

We systematically examined the extent to which these various affective and cognitive factors relevant to exercise predict affective response, and determined the extent to which these factors account for unique or overlapping variance in affective response.

Method

Healthy young adults (N = 69) completed measures of affective attitudes, affective associations, implicit associations, anticipated affect, self-efficacy, and exercise intentions. Participants then exercised for 20-min at moderate intensity on a treadmill, during and after which they reported their affective response. Using variables that were independent predictors, we conducted multivariate analyses to determine which factors account for unique variance in affective response to exercise.

Results

In three of four multivariate models, both anticipated and anticipatory affect variables explained unique variance in affective response during exercise. Only anticipatory affect variables accounted for unique variance in affective response immediately post-exercise. Finally, the association between exercise self-efficacy and affective response during-exercise was rendered non-significant after controlling for affective factors in all three multivariate models.

Conclusions

The unique associations between affective response to exercise and affective, but not cognitive, factors elucidate key predictors of affective response during- and post-exercise.

Section snippets

Participants

Healthy young adults (N = 69) enrolled in the study. Participants were recruited from classes in the psychology department of a private university. The mean age was 20.4 (SD = 2.4) years, with a range of 18–30 years. The mean body mass index (BMI) was 22.5 (SD = 3.3), with a range of 16.4–33.8 kg. The majority of participants (78%) were female. Most (61%) of the participants were Caucasian, 19% were Hispanic, 15% were Asian, 9% were African American, and 15% were of another race. The sample

Descriptive statistics

Descriptive statistics for all the study variables are presented in Table 1 and the inter-correlations between the affective and cognitive factors as well as the FS responses are presented in Table 2. The mean FS responses over the study session are presented in Fig. 1. As seen in the figure, the mean FS responses were similar at post-warm up and at 5, 10, 15, and 20 min (average intercorrelation = 0.76). Therefore, during exercise affective response was operationalized as the average of the FS

Discussion

This is the first study to systematically examine the predictive associations between various affective and cognitive factors and affective response to exercise. We found that both anticipated affect variables (regret, pride) and anticipatory affect variables (attitudes, associations) account for unique, independent aspects of affective response during exercise. Anticipatory affect accounted for unique variance in affective response immediately post-exercise, but none of the affective or

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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