Implicit Approach-Avoidance Associations and Leisure-Time Exercise

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Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Applied Psychology
Griffith Health
While the benefits of participating in regular leisure-time exercise are well known, many individuals fail to exercise regularly. Contemporary research into exercise motivation has identified automatic cognitive processes, such approach-avoidance biases, as at least partly involved in motivating exercise behaviour. Approach-avoidance biases refer to automatic and implicit dispositions to approach or avoid certain cues in the environment. These biases can be examined by measuring immediate action tendencies to approach or avoid, or by examining implicit approach-avoidance associations stored in long-term memory. Specifically, approach-avoidance associations reflect pre-existing links in memory between a target concept (e.g., exercise) and behavioural tendencies to approach or avoid. To date, existing research has not yet demonstrated a link between implicit approach-avoidance associations with exercise cues and exercise behaviour. Identifying whether participation in leisure-time exercise is associated with the strength of approach-avoidance associations may provide insight into why some individuals are automatically motivated to pursue exercise as a form of leisure and others are not. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis was to contribute to current understanding of exercise motivation by investigating the relationship between approach-avoidance memory associations and leisure-time exercise engagement. Study 1 used a Recoding-Free Implicit Association Test (IAT-RF) to examine the relationship between self-reported leisure-time exercise engagement and implicit approach-avoidance memory associations with exercise in a sample of healthy adults (N = 104). Results revealed stronger exercise-approach versus exercise-avoidance memory associations, indicative of an implicit approach bias for exercise cues. In addition, approach bias scores positively correlated with self-reported time spent on leisure-time exercise, and discriminated between individuals who did or