“I just NEED to move…”: examining women’s passion for physical activity and its relationship with daily affect and vitality

Abstract

Background: Physical activity has been linked to well-being among women. One psychological perspective that can offer insights regarding this relationship is the Dualistic Model of Passion. The model posits that individuals can internalize a valued activity in an autonomous fashion, facilitating a harmonious passion, or in a controlled way, resulting in an obsessive passion. The overall purpose of this experience sampling study with physically active working mothers was to examine the influence of passion towards physical activity on daily positive and negative affect as well as more generally in terms of vitality. Method: Sixty-three healthy and active middle-aged women participated in this study. The women attended a baseline session to complete a series of self-report questionnaires including The Passion Scale. Then, using the experience sampling method, the women responded to electronic questionnaires pertaining to their daily affect and physical activity engagement over a 14-day period. Subsequently they attended a second session during which levels of vitality were assessed. The data were analyzed using Hierarchical Linear Modeling and Analyses of Covariance. Results: Sixty of the participants (95%) were passionate towards physical activity. Daily positive affect was higher and negative affect lower on days when the women engaged in their passion (i.e., physical activity). On these active days, associations between overall positive and negative affect and levels of harmonious or obsessive passion were in the expected directions, albeit not significant. Levels of harmonious and obsessive passion moderated the relationship between activity engagement and positive affect such that obsessively passionate women felt significantly worse on days when they were not active. Vitality was negatively associated with obsessive passion and positively with harmonious passion. Conclusions: The findings were consistent with the Dualistic Model of Passion and they suggest avenues of future enquiry. In considering physical activity as a strategy to optimize women's well-being, the internalization process of this activity (autonomous versus controlled) should be considered. Potential application of these results should involve facilitating more harmonious passions towards physical activity by emphasizing flexible and volitional participation that is well balanced among other activities.

Psychological risk factors for exercise dependence

“…Additionally, they may experience negative emotions (e.g. guilt, shame, anxiety) on days when they are not able to exercise (Guérin, Fortier, & Williams, 2013;Vallerand et al, 2003), which in turn may result in an urge to extend exercise routines.…”

The power and perils of passion in the quest for self-growth and optimal functioning.

“…However, with OP, failing to engage in the passionate activity led to decreases in positive affect over baseline days. These findings were basically replicated in a 2-week diary study with women passionate about physical exercise by Michelle Fortier, now a professor at the University of Ottawa and her research team (Guérin et al, 2013). Thus, passion can trigger an affect that can be long lasting, even several hours after engagement in the passionate activity, thereby affecting one's general life outside the activity.…”