Self‐Motivation and Adherence to Habitual Physical Activity¹

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to develop and refine a psychometric measure of self‐motivation and assess its relationship to adherence to programs of habitual physical activity. Following construction of a Self‐Motivation Inventory, a series of studies were conducted involving the pretesting of undergraduate males and females (N= 401) and subsequent validation work involving intercollegiate women athletes (N= 64) and adult males (N= 66) in actual exercise settings. Results of the psychometric work provided evidence for the logical validity, internal consistency, and test‐retest reliability of the self‐motivation construct. In addition, convergent and discriminant evidence was provided for construct validity through self‐motivation's pattern of association with other conceptually relevant psychometric variables. Finally, from the standpoint of behavioral validation, self‐motivation proved to be the best discriminator between exercise adherers and dropouts among the psychological variables employed and was strongly related to program adherence in both exercise settings. In fact, when combined with selected morphologic variables in a psychobiologic framework, self‐motivation scores were found to accurately classify participants according to their adherence status in approximately 80% of all cases and to account for nearly 50% of the variance in exercise adherence behavior.

Motivations for participation in physical activity across the lifespan

“…Extrinsic motivators, such as wanting to increase physical attractiveness, seem most effective in initiating exercise initiatives (Dishman, 1987;Lim, Ting, Loh, Loo, & Shaikh, 2013;McAuley, Wraith, & Duncan, 1991;Morgan, Shephard, & Finucane, 1984), while it is thought that long-term maintenance of exercise behaviors depends more on intrinsic motivation (Gallagher & Updegraff, 2011;McAuley et al, 1991;Wankel, 1985Wankel, , 1988Wankel, , 1993. Nonetheless, a common perspective is that intrinsic motivation alone cannot sustain a physically active lifestyle (Edmunds, Ntoumanis, & Duda, 2006;Mullan & Markland, 1997).…”

Frequency of Loaded Road March Training and Performance on a Loaded Road March

“…An attempt was made to measure motivation by use of the Self Motivation Inventory on the post-training march. This measure is a reliable and valid measure of adherence to a training or exercise program (11). A high score on this test may be more indicative of the importance of training in preparation for the road march rather than motivation on the road march per se.…”

“…Immediately prior to the post-training road march soldiers were administered the Self Motivation Inventory developed by Dishman et al (11). This was given indoors in comfortable conditions with the soldiers wearing only their uniform and LCE.…”

Outcomes of a program to enhance exercise self‐efficacy and improve fitness in black and hispanic college‐age women

“…To obtain an index score of .16, a woman must have attended six sessions over a 4-week period. Six sessions was considered the minimum number of sessions a woman could attend and expect to see some improvement in fitness (Dishman, Ickles, & Morgan, 1980). …”