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Objective: Individuals’ decisions to engage in exercise are often the result of in-the-moment choices between exercise and a competing behavioral alternative. The purpose of this study was to investigate processes that occur in-the-moment (i.e., situated processes) when individuals are faced with the choice between exercise and a behavioral alternative during a computerized task. These were analyzed against the background of interindividual differences in individuals’ automatic valuation and controlled evaluation of exercise. Method: In a behavioral alternatives task 101 participants were asked whether they would rather choose an exercise option or a behavioral alternative in 25 trials. Participants’ gaze behavior (first gaze and fixations) was recorded using eye-tracking. An exercise-specific affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was used to assess participants’ automatic valuation of exercise before the task. After the task, self-reported feelings towards exercise (controlled evaluation) and usual weekly exercise volume were assessed. Mixed effects models with random effects for subjects and trials were used for data analysis. Results: Choosing exercise was positively correlated with individuals’ automatic valuation (r = 0.20, p = 0.05), controlled evaluation (r = 0.58, p

Objective: Individuals’ decisions to engage in exercise are often the result of in-the-moment choices between exercise and a competing behavioral alternative. The purpose of this study was to investigate processes that occur in-the-moment (i.e., situated processes) when individuals are faced with the choice between exercise and a behavioral alternative during a computerized task. These were analyzed against the background of interindividual differences in individuals’ automatic valuation and controlled evaluation of exercise. Method: In a behavioral alternatives task 101 participants were asked whether they would rather choose an exercise option or a behavioral alternative in 25 trials. Participants’ gaze behavior (first gaze and fixations) was recorded using eye-tracking. An exercise-specific affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was used to assess participants’ automatic valuation of exercise before the task. After the task, self-reported feelings towards exercise (controlled evaluation) and usual weekly exercise volume were assessed. Mixed effects models with random effects for subjects and trials were used for data analysis. Results: Choosing exercise was positively correlated with individuals’ automatic valuation (r = 0.20, p = 0.05), controlled evaluation (r = 0.58, p

The affective response during exercise is an important factor for long-term exercise adherence. Pottratz et al. suggested affective priming as a behavioral intervention for the enhancement of exercise-related affect. The present paper aims to replicate and extend upon these findings. We conducted a close replication with 53 participants completing a brisk walking task in two conditions (prime vs. no prime). Affective valence was assessed during exercise, and exercise enjoyment and remembered/forecasted pleasure were assessed postexercise. We could not replicate the findings of Pottratz et al., finding no evidence for positive changes in psychological responses in the priming condition. However, linear mixed models demonstrated significant interindividual differences in how participants responded to priming. These results demonstrate that affective priming during exercise does not work for everyone under every circumstance and, thus, provide an important contribution to the understanding of boundary conditions and moderating factors for priming in exercise psychology.

There is an ongoing debate about how to test and operationalize self-control. This limited understanding is in large part due to a variety of different tests and measures used to assess self-control, as well as the lack of empirical studies examining the temporal dynamics during the exertion of self-control. In order to track changes that occur over the course of exposure to a self-control task, we investigate and compare behavioral, subjective, and physiological indicators during the exertion of self-control. Participants completed both a task requiring inhibitory control (Go/No-Go task) and a control task (two-choice task). Behavioral performance and pupil size were measured during the tasks. Subjective vitality was measured before and after the tasks. While pupil size and subjective vitality showed similar trajectories in the two tasks, behavioral performance decreased in the inhibitory control-demanding task, but not in the control task. However, behavioral, subjective, and physiological measures were not significantly correlated. These results suggest that there is a disconnect between different measures of self-control with high intra- and interindividual variability. Theoretical and methodological implications for self-control theory and future empirical work are discussed., Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe; 818

The governmental lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic have forced people to change their behavior in many ways including changes in exercise. We used the brief window of global lockdown in the months of March/April/May 2020 as an opportunity to investigate the effects of externally imposed restrictions on exercise-related routines and related changes in subjective well-being. Statistical analyses are based on data from 13,696 respondents in 18 countries using a cross-sectional online survey. A mixed effects modeling approach was used to analyze data. We tested whether exercise frequency before and during the pandemic would influence mood during the pandemic. Additionally, we used the COVID-19 pandemic data to build a prediction model, while controlling for national differences, to estimate changes in exercise frequency during similar future lockdown conditions depending on prelockdown exercise frequency. According to the prediction model, those who rarely exercise before a lockdown tend to increase their exercise frequency during it, and those who are frequent exercisers before a lockdown tend to maintain it. With regards to subjective well-being, the data show that those who exercised almost every day during this pandemic had the best mood, regardless of whether or not they exercised prepandemic. Those who were inactive prepandemic and slightly increased their exercise frequency during the pandemic, reported no change in mood compared to those who remained inactive during the pandemic. Those who reduced their exercise frequency during the pandemic reported worse mood compared to those who maintained or increased their prepandemic exercise frequency. This study suggests that under similar lockdown conditions, about two thirds of those who never or rarely exercise before a lockdown might adopt an exercise behavior or increase their exercise frequency. However, such changes do not always immediately result in improvement in subjective well-being. These results may inform national policies, as well as health behavior and exercise psychology research on the importance of exercise promotion, and prediction of changes in exercise behavior during future pandemics.

The purpose of this study was to illustrate that people’s affective valuation of exercise can be identified in their faces. The study was conducted with a software for automatic facial expression analysis and it involved testing the hypothesis that positive or negative affective valuation occurs spontaneously when people are reminded of exercise. We created a task similar to an emotional Stroop task, in which participants responded to exercise-related and control stimuli with a positive or negative facial expression (smile or frown) depending on whether the photo was presented upright or tilted. We further asked participants how much time they would normally spend for physical exercise, because we assumed that the affective valuation of those who exercise more would be more positive. Based on the data of 86 participants, regression analysis revealed that those who reported less exercise and a more negative reflective evaluation of exercise initiated negative facial expressions on exercise-related stimuli significantly faster than those who reported exercising more often. No significant effect was observed for smile responses. We suspect that responding with a smile to exercise-related stimuli was the congruent response for the majority of our participants, so that for them no Stroop interference occurred in the exercise-related condition. This study suggests that immediate negative affective reactions to exercise-related stimuli result from a postconscious automatic process and can be detected in the study participants’ faces. It furthermore illustrates how methodological paradigms from social–cognition research (here: the emotional Stroop paradigm) can be adapted to collect and analyze biometric data for the investigation of exercisers’ and non-exercisers’ automatic valuations of exercise., Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe, 597

The purpose of this study was to illustrate that people’s affective valuation of exercise can be identified in their faces. The study was conducted with a software for automatic facial expression analysis and it involved testing the hypothesis that positive or negative affective valuation occurs spontaneously when people are reminded of exercise. We created a task similar to an emotional Stroop task, in which participants responded to exercise-related and control stimuli with a positive or negative facial expression (smile or frown) depending on whether the photo was presented upright or tilted. We further asked participants how much time they would normally spend for physical exercise, because we assumed that the affective valuation of those who exercise more would be more positive. Based on the data of 86 participants, regression analysis revealed that those who reported less exercise and a more negative reflective evaluation of exercise initiated negative facial expressions on exercise-related stimuli significantly faster than those who reported exercising more often. No significant effect was observed for smile responses. We suspect that responding with a smile to exercise-related stimuli was the congruent response for the majority of our participants, so that for them no Stroop interference occurred in the exercise-related condition. This study suggests that immediate negative affective reactions to exercise-related stimuli result from a postconscious automatic process and can be detected in the study participants’ faces. It furthermore illustrates how methodological paradigms from social–cognition research (here: the emotional Stroop paradigm) can be adapted to collect and analyze biometric data for the investigation of exercisers’ and non-exercisers’ automatic valuations of exercise.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) aims to measure participants' automatic evaluation of an attitude object and is useful especially for the measurement of attitudes related to socially sensitive subjects, e.g. doping in sports. Several studies indicate that IAT scores can be faked on instruction. But fully or semi-instructed research scenarios might not properly reflect what happens in more realistic situations, when participants secretly decide to try faking the test. The present study is the first to investigate IAT faking when there is only an implicit incentive to do so. Sixty-five athletes (22.83 years +/- 2.45; 25 women) were randomly assigned to an incentive-to-fake condition or a control condition. Participants in the incentive-to-fake condition were manipulated to believe that athletes with lenient doping attitudes would be referred to a tedious 45-minute anti-doping program. Attitudes were measured with the pictorial doping brief IAT (BIAT) and with the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale (PEAS). A one-way MANOVA revealed significant differences between conditions after the manipulation in PEAS scores, but not in the doping BIAT. In the light of our hypothesis this suggests that participants successfully faked an exceedingly negative attitude to doping when completing the PEAS, but were unsuccessful in doing so on the reaction time-based test. This study assessed BIAT faking in a setting that aimed to resemble a situation in which participants want to hide their attempts to cheat. The two measures of attitude were differentially affected by the implicit incentive. Our findings provide evidence that the pictorial doping BIAT is relatively robust against spontaneous and naive faking attempts. (B) IATs might be less prone to faking than implied by previous studies., Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe, 524

Objective: To critically review developments over the first fifty years of research (1967-2017) on (a) how people feel when they participate in exercise and physical activity, and (b) the implications of these responses for their willingness to become and remain active. Design: Non-systematic narrative review. Method: Representative sources were selected through a combination of computer searches and cross-referencing. Results: For over three decades, exercise psychology exhibited a fixation on the idea that exercise and physical activity make people feel better. This notion, however, seemed to contrast with evidence that most adults in industrialized countries exhibit low levels of activity. In the last two decades, a critical examination and overhaul of the methodological platform resulted in the delineation of a dose-response pattern that encompasses positive as well as negative affective responses, and revealed marked interindividual differences. An emerging literature is aimed at refining and testing integrative dual-process models that can offer specific predictions about the behaviors that may result from the interaction of automatic processes (theorized to be heavily influenced by past affective experiences) and deliberative processes (such as cognitive appraisals). Conclusions: Affective responses to exercise and physical activity are more complex than the long-popularized "feel-better" effect, encompassing both pleasant and unpleasant experiences and exhibiting marked inter individual variation. The potential of affective experiences to influence subsequent behavior offers an opportunity for an expanded theoretical perspective in exercise psychology.

Objective: The affective-reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise suggests that the mere thought of exercise can lead to an immediate somato-affective response which, if negative, will drive a physically inactive person to maintain his or her current exercise-avoidant behavior. This study aimed to test the assumption that the somatic core of this affective response can be identified by means of heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. Design: This study followed a within-subject experimental design. Method. Participants were 91 adult men and women whose HR and HRV were monitored whilst they viewed exercise-related and control pictures in a laboratory setting. Results: Analyses revealed a decrease in HRV during the viewing of exercise-related pictures in less physically active participants. These participants reported that the same pictures elicited feelings with relatively low affective valence and arousal. There were no changes in HR.

IntroductionWhile physical activity (PA) can play an important role in the treatment of mental disorders (MD), large proportions of patients with MD do not meet PA recommendations. The aim of this trial was to evaluate whether structured psychological intervention (MoVo-LISA) is effective in helping outpatients with MD to increase their level of PA. As active control group (CG) we modified MoVo-LISA to target healthy diet behavior.MethodsN=83 outpatients with MD (F1-F4) were randomized to the two conditions. PA (self-report and accelerometry), dietary behavior, social-cognitive determinants of health behavior change, psychiatric symptoms and health-related quality of life were assessed at baseline, 1 and 12 weeks after the intervention.ResultsSignificant time*group interaction effects for objectively measured PA, dietary behavior and fruit and vegetable consumption indicated differential effects of the interventions on these outcomes. PA increased in the MoVo-LISA group (IG) from baseline to follow-up while it decreased in CG. IG showed a significant higher level of objectively measured PA at follow-up compared to CG. Dietary behavior and fruit and vegetable consumption significantly increased from baseline to follow-up in CG, but not IG. IG showed a significant increase in some, but not all social cognitive determinants of health behavior change.ConclusionsMoVo-LISA is effective in helping outpatients with MD to increase their level of PA in short- and mid-term. The used intervention strategies are effective for the promotion of healthy diet in patients with MD as well.

Neuroenhancement (NE) is the non-medical use of psychoactive substances to produce a subjective enhancement in psychological functioning and experience. So far empirical investigations of individuals' motivation for NE however have been hampered by the lack of theoretical foundation. This study aimed to apply drug instrumentalization theory to user motivation for NE. We argue that NE should be defined and analyzed from a behavioral perspective rather than in terms of the characteristics of substances used for NE. In the empirical study we explored user behavior by analyzing relationships between drug options (use over-the-counter products, prescription drugs, illicit drugs) and postulated drug instrumentalization goals (e.g., improved cognitive performance, counteracting fatigue, improved social interaction). Questionnaire data from 1438 university students were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to address the question of whether analysis of drug instrumentalization should be based on the assumption that users are aiming to achieve a certain goal and choose their drug accordingly or whether NE behavior is more strongly rooted in a decision to try or use a certain drug option. We used factor mixture modeling to explore whether users could be separated into qualitatively different groups defined by a shared "goal X drug option" configuration. Our results indicate, first, that individuals decisions about NE are eventually based on personal attitude to drug options (e.g., willingness to use an over-the-counter product but not to abuse prescription drugs) rather than motivated by desire to achieve a specific goal (e.g., fighting tiredness) for which different drug options might be tried. Second, data analyses suggested two qualitatively different classes of users. Both predominantly used over-the-counter products, but "neuroenhancers" might be characterized by a higher propensity to instrumentalize over-the-counter products for virtually all investigated goals whereas "fatigue-fighters" might be inclined to use over-the-counter products exclusively to fight fatigue. We believe that psychological investigations like these are essential, especially for designing programs to prevent risky behavior.

The aim of this study was to examine how automatic evaluations of exercising (AEE) varied according to adherence to an exercise program. Eighty-eight participants (24.98 years ± 6.88; 51.1% female) completed a Brief-Implicit Association Task assessing their AEE, positive and negative associations to exercising at the beginning of a 3-month exercise program. Attendance data were collected for all participants and used in a cluster analysis of adherence patterns. Three different adherence patterns (52 maintainers, 16 early dropouts, 20 late dropouts; 40.91% overall dropouts) were detected using cluster analyses. Participants from these three clusters differed significantly with regard to their positive and negative associations to exercising before the first course meeting (η2p = 0.07). Discriminant function analyses revealed that positive associations to exercising was a particularly good discriminating factor. This is the first study to provide evidence of the differential impact of positive and negative associations on exercise behavior over the medium term. The findings contribute to theoretical understanding of evaluative processes from a dual-process perspective and may provide a basis for targeted interventions.

Recent research has indicated that university students sometimes use caffeine pills for neuroenhancement (NE; non-medical use of psychoactive substances or technology to produce a subjective enhancement in psychological functioning and experience), especially during exam preparation. In our factorial survey experiment, we manipulated the evidence participants were given about the prevalence of NE amongst peers and measured the resulting effects on the psychological predictors included in the Prototype-Willingness Model of risk behavior. Two hundred and thirty-one university students were randomized to a high prevalence condition (read faked research results overstating usage of caffeine pills amongst peers by a factor of 5; 50%), low prevalence condition (half the estimated prevalence; 5%) or control condition (no information about peer prevalence). Structural equation modeling confirmed that our participants’ willingness and intention to use caffeine pills in the next exam period could be explained by their past use of neuroenhancers, attitude to NE and subjective norm about use of caffeine pills whilst image of the typical user was a much less important factor. Provision of inaccurate information about prevalence reduced the predictive power of attitude with respect to willingness by 40-45%. This may be because receiving information about peer prevalence which does not fit with their perception of the social norm causes people to question their attitude. Prevalence information might exert a deterrent effect on NE via the attitude-willingness association. We argue that research into NE and deterrence of associated risk behaviors should be informed by psychological theory.

The present research transfers the concept of self-leadership, originally rooted in organizational psychology, to the domain of elite sports. For this two studies were conducted: The first study analyzes whether self-leadership maintains construct-specific variance when compared with the similar concept of volition. Results showed that self-leadership and volition are distinguishable, albeit weak to moderately correlated concepts (r = .33). Moreover using the Rubicon model of action phases to integrate volition and self-leadership within a coherent theoretical framework revealed that self-leadership supplements volition during goal attainment. The second study refines the concept of self-leadership using the Rubicon model of action phases. This eliminates current conceptual weaknesses from the construct of self-leadership within organizational psychology. Based on a refined self-leadership conceptualization an interview guide was developed to specify self-leadership ability within elite sports. Already successful elite athlets (n = 43) were interviewd to identify self-leading strategies, which they used successfully to cope with critical situations applied within the domain of elite sports (e.g. goal conflicts, setbacks). Results specify that the global ability of self-leadership can be divided in five general dimensions of self-leading strategies labeled motivational skills, volitional skills, self-regulation skills, resource managing skills, and metacognitive skills. Furthermore an empirically generated set of self-leading strategies was identified which was used successfully to cope with critical situations applied within the domain of elite sports. Therefore the present findings provide a starting point to spur future lines of research particularly in the area of measurement and training of self-leadership in elie sports. Die vorliegende Arbeit transferiert das Konstrukt der Selbstführung, ein in der Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie bereits etabliertes Führungskonzept, auf den Spitzensport. Dazu wurden zwei Studien durchgeführt: Die erste Studie beleuchtet inwiefern Selbstführung auf Konstruktebene vom verwandten Konstrukt der Volition abzugrenzen ist. Die zweite Studie präzisiert über eine handlungstheoretische Perspektive das Selbstführungskonzept auf theoretischer Ebene und konkretisiert über eine qualitative Interviewstudie Anforderungen, Kompetenzen und Strategien individueller Selbstführungsfähigkeit im Spitzensport.