Motives matter: A smartphone EMA study on the association between motives to exercise, exercise engagement and mood.

OBJECTIVE

Regular exercise is vital for preventing cardiovascular disease, maintaining a healthy body weight and supporting mental well-being, yet most people exercise insufficiently often due to motivational barriers.

DESIGN

This study examined two types of exercise motive-functional (divided into health/fitness and enjoyment) and appearance-and their interplay with mood and exercise engagement in daily life. Two hypotheses were tested: (H1) functional motives, compared to appearance motive, predict greater exercise engagement, and (H2) higher (more positive) mood, in interaction with exercise motives, predicts greater exercise engagement.

METHOD: Ninety-eight healthy BMI women completed a 2-week smartphone Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) protocol reporting exercise motive (baseline), exercise engagement (frequency, intensity, duration) and mood several times/day.

RESULTS

Partially supporting H1, enjoyment motive predicted greater exercise frequency and duration, whereas-contrary to H1- health/fitness motive predicted shorter duration and appearance was unrelated to engagement. H2 was not supported: mood did not predict engagement and functional motives did not strengthen the mood-engagement link. Contrary to H2, the appearance motive strengthened the (same-moment) within-person association between mood and exercise intensity, such that women higher in appearance motive showed a stronger positive mood-intensity link. Multilevel temporal networks revealed that higher (more positive) mood at one assessment weakly predicted greater exercise intensity and duration at the next assessment.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, enjoyment emerges as central to exercise engagement, while positive mood temporally precedes exercise, informing future lifestyle interventions. Further research on the temporal dynamics linking mood and exercise is warranted.