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Understanding Intentions to Exercise Following a Structured Exercise Program: An Attributional Perspective 1
Author(s) -
Courneya Kerry S.,
McAuley Edward
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb02738.x
Subject(s) - attribution , affect (linguistics) , psychology , attendance , social psychology , outcome (game theory) , mathematics , communication , mathematical economics , economics , economic growth
The present study examined the relationships among perceived outcome, causal attributions, affect, expected success, and intentions to exercise following a structured exercise program. Participants were 105 volunteers who had just completed a 12‐week exercise program. Results indicated that perceived outcome over objective outcome (% attendance) was significantly more important for understanding the attribution process. Interesting interactions indicated that (a) individuals who made personally controllable attributions reported higher positive affect following perceived success, but lower positive affect following perceived failure than those who made personally uncontrollable attributions, and (b) individuals who made external attributions following perceived failure reported higher expected success than those who made internal attributions. Finally, both positive affect and expected success showed positive relationships with intention to exercise following the program. It was suggested that attribution theory may be beneficial to understanding continued exercise following structured exercise programs.