Using implicit attitudes of exercise importance to predict explicit exercise dependence symptoms and exercise behaviors

Abstract

Objectives ”Fast” (i.e., implicit) processing is relatively automatic; “slow” (i.e., explicit) processing is relatively controlled and can override automatic processing. These different processing types often produce different responses that uniquely predict behaviors. In the present study, we tested if explicit, self-reported symptoms of exercise dependence and an implicit association of exercise as important predicted exercise behaviors and change in problematic exercise attitudes. Design We assessed implicit attitudes of exercise importance and self-reported symptoms of exercise dependence at Time 1. Participants reported daily exercise behaviors for approximately one month, and then completed a Time 2 assessment of self-reported exercise dependence symptoms. Method Undergraduate males and females (Time 1, N = 93; Time 2, N = 74) tracked daily exercise behaviors for one month and completed an Implicit Association Test assessing implicit exercise importance and subscales of the Exercise Dependence Questionnaire (EDQ) assessing exercise dependence symptoms. Results Implicit attitudes of exercise importance and Time 1 EDQ scores predicted Time 2 EDQ scores. Further, implicit exercise importance and Time 1 EDQ scores predicted daily exercise intensity while Time 1 EDQ scores predicted the amount of days exercised. Conclusion Implicit and explicit processing appear to uniquely predict exercise behaviors and attitudes. Given that different implicit and explicit processes may drive certain exercise factors (e.g., intensity and frequency, respectively), these behaviors may contribute to different aspects of exercise dependence.

The impact of E-diaries and accelerometers on young adults' perceived and objectively assessed physical activity

“…Combining accelerometers with e-diaries is theoretically advantageous for researchers interested in measuring intentional and incidental PA using diary methods (e.g., Alahmari et al, 2016; Forrest, Smith, Fussner, Dodd, & Clerkin, 2016). It is promising to see that the use of the diary mitigated the effects of the accelerometer on participants’ self-reported activity at follow-up.…”

Exercise Addiction in Practitioners of Endurance Sports: A Literature Review

“…As happens in other situations, people addicted to exercise go through periods in which they are incapable of controlling their behavior because of the pleasure that undertaking this activity brings them, regardless of any negative consequences (Berczik et al, 2011 ; Sellman, 2016 ). Moreover, social acceptance of sport as a behavior strongly positive for health (Forrest et al, 2016 ), even for those people with a high risk of becoming addicts (Lichtenstein et al, 2017 ), makes it more difficult to understand that exercise can be an addiction. In any case, although exercise dependence has crossed the boundary of a disorder, exercise addiction is still a controversial concept (Starcevic and Khazaal, 2017 ), an operational definition of behavioral addictions with a number of exclusion criteria (which cover high-level sports) has been recently proposed (Kardefelt-Whinter et al, 2017 ), and there is a need for well-founded discussion in this area (Kräplin, 2017 ; Starcevic, 2016 ).…”

Automatic Evaluations and Exercising: Systematic Review and Implications for Future Research

“…When measuring AEE and exercise indicators, it is essential to bear the affective nature of AEE in mind. This focus led to the exclusion of some studies that assessed automatic associations in the context of exercising but highlighted aspects other than the affective one (e.g., health; Berry et al, 2016 , and exercise importance; Forrest et al, 2016 ). This differentiation is especially important when correlating AEE with reflective evaluations that measure more (see Calitri et al, 2009 ; Brand and Schweizer, 2015 ) or fewer (see Karpen et al, 2012 ) affective components.…”