Chapter 24
Exercise Psychology
Rod K. Dishman and Heather O.
Chambliss
“Muscular vigor will…always be needed to furnish the background
of sanity, serenity, and cheerfulness to life,…to round off the wiry
edge of our fretfulness, and make us good-humored and easy of
approach.”
William James, 1899
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Introduction
Evidence supports that physical
activity reduces odds of
disorders such as depression,
anxiety, and cognitive decline
associated with aging, while
promoting self-esteem, better
sleep, and feelings of energy
and well-being
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Exercise Statistics
• 25-40% of U.S. adults not active
during their leisure time
• Another 20-25% do not meet
recommended activity levels
for health and fitness
• 42% of U.S. children ages 6-11
years of age were active at the
recommended level of an hour
each day, but only 8% of
adolescents were active at that
level
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Primary Focus of Exercise Psychology
• The social-cognitive and environmental antecedents of
leisure-time physical activity and the psychological
consequences of being physically active
• Exercise and mental health
• Issues in physical activity behavior change and exercise
adherence
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Exercise and Mental Health
• Physical activity or exercise have favorable effects on mental
health
• Chronic exercise and physical fitness are associated with:
 anxiety
o  depression
o  self-esteem
o
• These disorders not only affect quality of life, but also increase
the risks for other chronic diseases, such as coronary heart
disease
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Anxiety
• Anxiety is typically reduced by about
one-half SD after an exercise session
of moderate-vigorous intensity
• Anxiety reductions were greatest
when sessions lasted at least 30
minutes with people reported anxiety
symptoms for more than a week
• YET no consensus on what kind or
how much exercise
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Depression
• Exercise training can reduce signs or
symptoms of depression to a degree
comparable to antidepressant drugs
• YET no consensus on what kind or how
much exercise
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Distress and Well-Being
• Psychological distress is risk factor for
psychiatric disorders, coronary heart disease,
and poorer quality of life
• Feelings of well-being can reduce psychiatric
risk and is an important feature of high life
quality and health
• Evidence is ambiguous as to the effects of
exercise training on physiological responses
to mental stress
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Sleep
• 50-70 million Americans experience health effects from
sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, and excessive daytime
sleepiness each year
• Some evidence shows higher levels of usual physical
activity appear to be protective against incident and
chronic insomnia in older adults
• Exercise training led to improvements in self-rated sleep
among older adults who had sleep problems
• YET long term effects of exercise among poor sleepers are
not known
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Feelings of Fatigue or Low Energy
• About 20% of adults say they have persistent feelings of fatigue
• Randomized controlled trials of groups of medical patients and adults
show a moderate reductions in symptoms of fatigue from exercise
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Self-Esteem
• Important to mental health because it provides a feeling of
value or worth
• Strongest evidence for positive effects of exercise on
mental health is for self-esteem
• Changes in self-esteem more likely in children than adults
• YET it remains unclear whether it is exercise itself that
increases self-esteem, or something in the social context of
the exercise setting
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Exercise and Mental Health (cont.)
• Cognitive Function
• Cognition = selection, manipulation, and storage of information 
then using that info to guide behavior
• Exercise can improve cognitive functioning in older adults and
children
• Fitness is more related to performance on tasks that are novel,
complex, and require attention and fast processing speed
• Cardio respiratory fitness and chronic aerobic exercise training
facilitate executive control functions of cognition among older adults
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Plausible Mediators or Mechanisms
• The explanations of how physical activity improves
mental health are largely unknown…but same is
true of psychotherapy and medications
• A few hypotheses:
• Thermogenic hypothesis
• Increased brain opioids
• Hemispheric asymmetry in brain
electroencephalographic
• And many, many more
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Research Issues in Exercise and
Mental Health
• Some inconsistencies in findings are due to the
quality of research
• Many studies do not:
• Adequately quantify physical activity and exertion
• Control for subject expectancy or social interaction effects
• Consider health and activity history of the participants
• More studies needed to research different types of
exercise, different levels of exertion, etc.
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Physical Activity Behavior Change
• Many adults have trouble maintaining
an active lifestyle
• Less than 10% of U.S. adults and
adolescents are sufficiently active
• 25-50% of people dropout of exercise
programs
• No consensus about whether the most
successful interventions will be those
that change people or change their
environments
• Both are probably necessary
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Theories of Exercise Behavior
• Social-cognitive theory
• Cognition, affect, and value related variables
are mediators in choice of goals, and thus
exercise behavior
• Self-efficacy (performance accomplishments,
vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and
physiological/psychological states)
• Outcome expectancy
• Individuals who adopt challenging goals and
have confidence in attaining them would
have optimal motivation for exercise
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Theories of Exercise Behavior (cont.)
• Self-determination theory
• Hypothesizes how intrinsic motives for
physical activity develop AND interact with
physical and social-environments to
influence physical activity
• Complimentary to social-cognitive theory
• Assumes that people strive for autonomy,
competence, and relatedness
• Autonomous motivation VS. controlled
motivation
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Theories of Exercise Behavior (cont.)
• Behavior modification theory
• Planned, systematic application of
principles of learning to the
modification of behavior
• Behavior change results from
associations between external
stimuli and the consequences of a
specific behavior
• Minimizes the role of thoughts,
motives, and perceptions
• Examples: written agreements,
behavioral contracts, lotteries, etc.
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Theories of Exercise Behavior (cont.)
• Cognitive-behavior modification model
• Assumes psychological variables mediate behavior
• Learning or insight can serve to restructure, augment, or
replace faulty thoughts with behaviorally effective beliefs
and cognitive skills
• Examples: self-monitoring, goal setting, feedback, and
decision-making
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Theories of Exercise Behavior (cont.)
• Transtheoretical model
• Behavior change is seen as a dynamic process that occurs
through a series of five stages
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Precontemplation - not thinking about exercise
Contemplation - considering exercise
Preparation - plan is made
Action - have started exercise
Maintenance - exercise behavior continues
• Proposed that the mediators of change are self-efficacy,
decisional balance (pros and cons), and processes of change
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Theories of Exercise Behavior (cont.)
•Ecological model
• Behaviors can be influenced by
intrapersonal, social and physical
environments, and public policy variables
• Behavioral setting can facilitate the decision
to be more or less active
• Centers for Disease Control has adapted this
model by making geographical areas more
exercise friendly (schools, personal
transportation, and access to facilities)
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Correlates of Physical Activity
• Personal attributes
• Cognitions, beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and values that
can interact with environmental variables
• Smoking, education, income, ethnicity, age, and gender
• No evidence these factors CAUSE inactivity
• Social and environmental features
• Social and physical environments can make it very difficult
for people to be physically active for transportation or
leisure
• YET the importance of the social and physical environments
for promoting physical activity is not clear
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Correlates of Physical Activity (cont.)
• Physical activity dimensions
• How do frequency, intensity, and duration
enhance adoption of and adherence to physical
activity?
• Exercise prescription based on preferred
intensities might increase adherence to
exercise programs
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Interventions
•
Change in exercise behavior
increases adherence from 50%
without intervention to about
85% after intervention
Behavioral economics studies
demonstrate the strong influence
of environmental context on
sedentary choices made by
children and adolescents
•
•
•
Promote environmental
manipulations to increase
opportunities and decrease barriers
to physical activity
Informational interventions
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Behavioral Strategies
• Stimulus control
• Manipulate antecedent conditions that prompt a behavior
• Increase cues for the desired behavior; decrease cues for
competing sedentary behaviors
• Examples: posters, slogans, posted notes, placement of exercise
equipment in visible places, recruitment of social support, and
performance of exercise at the same time and place every day
• Reinforcement control
• Understand and controlling the consequences of target
behavior to increase (or decrease) its occurrence
• Rewarding a behavior to increase its frequency
• Examples: contracts with consequences, positive feedback, tokens,
participation-based prizes, and group lotteries
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Behavioral Strategies (cont.)
• Goal setting
• Serve to immediately regulate behavior, provide direction,
mobilize effort, foster persistence
• Specific, measurable goals easier to monitor progress, make
adjustments, and know when goal has been accomplished
• Should be challenging but also reasonable and realistic
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Behavioral Strategies (cont.)
• Relapse prevention
• The individual anticipates that interruptions occur, recognizes them as
temporary obstructions, and develops self-regulatory skills
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Research Issues in Exercise Behavior
1. Use of cross-sectional correlational designs
2. Poorly validated measures of the moderators and
mediators
3. Self-reported measures of physical activity
•
Not objective
4. Limited use of statistical procedures that permit
multilevel modeling of direct, indirect, and
moderated relations of physical activity
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