Future-oriented emotions and physical activity: Anticipated and anticipatory emotions as predictors of behavioural intentions and expectations

• Anticipated and anticipatory emotions are two distinct future-oriented emotions. • Future-oriented emotions were captured for physical activity (PA) and non-PA events. • More physically active people recorded more positive emotions for PA events. • Valence of anticipated emotion predicted PA intention. • Valence of anticipatory emotion predicted PA behavioural expectations. Recent theories of physical activity motivation highlight the potential importance of affective, or hedonic, factors. These include two conceptually distinct future-oriented emotions involved in contemplating potential future physical activity. Anticipated emotion refers to the emotions one predicts feeling if the future event were to happen, whilst anticipatory emotions are experienced in the moment when thinking about a potential future event. The current study investigated the extent to which both future-oriented emotions vary as a function of participants’ current activity levels, and their cross-sectional predictive value for physical activity intentions and behavioural expectations. In response to descriptions of potential future physical and non-physical activity events, 133 participants rated the valence and arousal of both anticipated and anticipatory emotions. They also rated behavioural expectation for each event and completed measures of current physical activity level and future physical activity intention. Results were largely in line with pre-registered predictions. Higher levels of current physical activity were associated with more positive anticipated and anticipatory emotions for potential physical activity events. Furthermore, when controlling for physical activity level, the valence of anticipated emotion for physical activity events predicted physical activity intention (β = 0.39, 95% CI 0.06, 0.72), whilst anticipatory emotion valence predicted behavioural expectations (β = 0.52, 95% CI 0.25, 0.79). These findings provide preliminary evidence that both types of emotional anticipation may play distinct roles in motivating physical activity engagement, which could be further explored using longitudinal designs and accelerometer data.