Effects of directed thinking on exercise and cardiovascular fitness

Abstract

Although it is well established that exercise aids in the prevention of bone loss, heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes, recent surveys suggest that only one quarter of Americans engage in regular physical activity. The present experiments examined one possible technique for increasing regular exercise, a technique derived from attitude representation theory (Lord & Lepper, 1999) and from McGuire and McGuire's (1991) theory of directed thinking. According to attitude representation theory, when people think about any attitude object, whether it is a social group or an activity such as exercise, they activate relevant exemplars, characteristics and actions. According to the theory of directed thinking, when people think about any event, including personally relevant events such as "me doing regular exercise" they activate pre-event actions and post-event consequences.^Pre-event actions involve actions an individual could take that would increase the probability that the event would occur.^ Several previous studies have shown that directing students to think about action strategies that would increase studying results in greater intentions to study. The present experiments (1 and 2) tested whether directing students to think about action strategies to exercise might increase intentions to exercise, and also increase actual exercise behavior and cardiovascular fitness. Although Experiment 1 found few effects of directed thinking, Experiment 2, which altered and improved the experimental procedures and dependent measures, found that directed thinking about self-generated action strategies can significantly increase cardiovascular fitness.^Experiment 3 suggested that action strategies might be equally effective for changing attitudes toward exercise regardless of whether the strategies are self-generated or other-generated, but reasons for exercising might be effective only when they are self-generated. The results of the three experiments are discussed in terms of theoretical perspectives on attitude processes.