Saturday, September 21, 2013

How to make exercise a habit: new science

     

    Posted on September 21, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

                 Int J Behav Med. 2013 Sep 20. [Epub ahead of print]

Predicting Automaticity in Exercise Behaviour: The Role of Perceived Behavioural Control, Affect, Intention, Action Planning, and Behaviour.

 de Bruijn GJ, Gardner B, van Osch L, Sniehotta FF. Source: Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, g.j.debruijn@uva.nl.

 Abstract

BACKGROUND:

 Habit formation has been proposed as a way to maintain behaviour over time.

 PURPOSE:

Recent evidence suggests that constructs additional to repeated performance may predict physical automaticity, but no research has yet explored possible direct impacts of intention, planning, affect, and perceived behavioural control (PBC) on automaticity.

METHOD:

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); In a prospective study over a 2-week period amongst 406 undergraduate students (M age = 21.5 years [SD = 2.59], 27.4 % males), we investigated main and interaction effects of past exercise behaviour, PBC, intention, planning, and affect on exercise automaticity.

RESULTS:

Results showed that – controlling for past behaviour – PBC, affect, and planning were significant and positive predictors of exercise automaticity. Decomposing a significant interaction between PBC and planning when to exercise revealed that planning became less predictive of exercise automaticity at higher levels of PBC.

CONCLUSION:

Findings show that exercise automaticity is predicted by repeated performance and social-cognitive constructs. Further, interactions between social-cognitive predictors may be different for behavioural automaticity than for behavioural frequency.

SOURCE

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