Although the study of the affective components involved in predicting physical activity is spreading faster and faster, there is a lack of studies testing their role when promoting physical activity through message interventions. In the present study, we considered these components by focusing on how anticipated affective reactions and emotional processing of the messages influence receivers’ affective attitude toward physical activity, concurrent behavior, and future intention. A sample of 250 participants was involved in an intervention relying on prefactual messages promoting (...) physical activity. All messages were sent through a research app and were focused on the expected consequences of exercising. Four experimental conditions involving messages differing as to their outcome sensitivity framing were compared to a control condition. Results showed that reading gain and non-gain messages enhanced the positive affective attitude toward physical activity, compared to control. Enhanced affective attitude after the intervention increased, in turn, self-reported physical activity and future intention. Interestingly, gain messages were even more persuasive for people with a low level of positive anticipated affective reactions. Furthermore, their effectiveness was especially attributable to the elicitation of hope in receivers. Discussion focuses on the advantages of considering affective components and their implications when promoting physical activity. (shrink)

The present study contains an affect-based intervention intended to support exercise trainers in positively influencing their course participants’ affective responses to their exercise courses. We argue that positive affective responses are associated with habit formation, thereby being a promising approach for avoiding high drop-out rates in exercise courses. First, the present study aimed to investigate whether the intervention for exercise trainers could increase affective attitudes, and exercise instigation habit strength, and influence the development of weekly measured affective responses and automaticity (...) among adult participants of exercise courses. Second, it examined the relationship between the development of affective responses and exercise instigation habit strength. Ten exercise trainers of weekly sports and exercise courses at a German university received either an affect-based intervention or a control intervention. 132 of their course participants answered the Self-Report Habit Index for exercise instigation habit strength and items to measure affective attitude in the initial and final assessment. Moreover, they were assessed for a duration of 10 weeks during which, each time after attending the course, they reported their affective response to exercise as well as their automaticity in arriving at the decision to exercise. In the repeated measures ANOVA, there was a significant main effect of time for exercise instigation habit strength. Overall, habit strength was higher in the final than in the initial assessment. However, there were no significant differences between the two conditions in all study variables. In the latent growth curve model, the trajectory of the latent growth curve of valence was a significant predictor of the final exercise instigation habit strength. While the applied affect-based intervention was not successful in enhancing positive affective responses to exercise, the results indicate that positive affective responses may contribute to strengthening exercise instigation habits. Future studies should examine the effectiveness of interventions in long-term study designs. (shrink)