Is sitting invisible? Exploring how people mentally represent sitting

Abstract

BackgroundGrowing evidence suggests that prolonged uninterrupted sitting can be detrimental to health. Much sedentary behaviour research is reliant on self-reports of sitting time, and sitting-reduction interventions often focus on reducing motivation to sit. These approaches assume that people are consciously aware of their sitting time. Drawing on Action Identification Theory, this paper argues that people rarely identify the act of sitting as ‘sitting’ per se, and instead view it as an incidental component of more meaningful and purposeful typically-seated activities.MethodsStudies 1 and 2 explored whether people mentioned sitting in written descriptions of actions. Studies 3–5 compared preferences for labelling a typically desk-based activity as ‘sitting’ versus alternative action identities. Studies 6 and 7 used card-sort tasks to indirectly assess the prioritisation of ‘sitting’ relative to other action descriptions when identifying similar actions.ResultsParticipants rarely spontaneously mentioned sitting when describing actions (Studies 1–2), and when assigning action labels to a seated activity, tended to offer descriptions based on higher-order goals and consequences of action, rather than sitting or other procedural elements (Studies 3–5). Participants primarily identified similarities in actions based not on sitting, but on activities performed while seated (e.g. reading; Studies 6–7).Conclusion‘Sitting’ is a less accessible cognitive representation of seated activities than are representations based on the purpose and implications of seated action. Findings suggest that self-report measures should focus on time spent in seated activities, rather than attempting to measure sitting time via direct recall. From an intervention perspective, findings speak to the importance of targeting behaviours that entail sitting, and of raising awareness of sitting as a potential precursor to attempting to reduce sitting time.

The effectiveness of sedentary behaviour interventions on sitting time and screen time in children and adults: an umbrella review of systematic reviews

“…Exposure to SB is frequently operationalised under a socio-ecological system where an individual’s SB is highly influenced by multiple factors such as the nature of their tasks and the tools/ equipment used to perform the tasks [ 16 ]. It explained why sit-stand desks in the workplace setting could be very effective in reducing sitting time as sitting itself is not a prerequisite for the work at hand [ 44 , 45 ].…”

Worldwide surveillance of self-reported sitting time: a scoping review

“…The predominant existing items used in country-level surveillance, the IPAQ and GPAQ, are low-cost and feasible. A stronger global surveillance system will use more accurate measures of sitting time that remain feasible, and have demonstrated sensitivity to change [16,17,22,23]. The Global Observatory for Physical Activity (GoPA!)…”

“…One promising method is to measure how long seated activities are undertaken (e.g. time spent driving, watching television), rather than asking how long someone has spent sitting [23]. However, single-item measurement of total sitting time may remain important for population surveillance as it is highly feasible.…”

I Sit but I Don’t Know Why: Integrating Controlled and Automatic Motivational Precursors Within a Socioecological Approach to Predict Sedentary Behaviors

“…In this perspective, the present work paves the way to future work interested in mapping potential interactions between these levels of in uence, as showed in the physical activity domain (Rhodes et al, 2006). Second, although Actigraph GT3-X + tends to overestimate sedentary behaviors, in comparison with the ActivPal (Migueles et al, 2017), it provides an acceptable evaluation of sedentary behaviors in comparison with self-reported measurement (Gardner et al, 2019). Finally, we used a re ned statistical analysis suited to examine daily-basis associations.…”

“…While previous work focused on a speci c sedentary behavior (e.g., daily time spent watching TV) and assessed the respective speci c affective and instrumental attitudes (e.g., attitudes toward watching TV) (e.g.,Rhodes & Dean, 2009), our study examined the in uence of attitudes toward a large range of sedentary behaviors on global leisure-time sedentary behaviors. Likewise, our measure of the intention to reduce sedentary behaviors was derived from a time threshold (i.e., spending no more than four sedentary behaviors a day during leisure time).Yet, such global estimation may not represent an organizing target for the regulation of individuals' behaviors because sitting activities are hardly mentally represented(Gardner et al, 2019). Nonetheless, this non-signi cant association between the overall intention to reduce sedentary behaviors and leisuretime sedentary behaviors was already observed in previous work(Maher & Conroy, 2016;Maher & Dunton, 2019), thereby pointing out that intention may not be su cient to reduce sedentary behaviors.…”