The population remains physically inactive despite the proven benefits of physical activity. Promoting and maintaining sedentary undergraduates exercising is beneficial to their long-term development. According to the dual-process theory, behaviors are the result of not only reflective but also impulsive processes. Affective priming is assumed to be an efficient intervention to improve affective responses to exercise and might promote exercise behavior through the impulsive process. Therefore, the present study examined the effect of a four-week affective priming intervention on affective responses to exercise, exercise intentions, and exercise behavior. Method: Twenty-nine sedentary undergraduates (Mage = 20.07, SD = 2.05, female% = 89.7%) were randomized to either the exercise with subliminal affective priming group (AP group, n = 15) or the exercise only group (EX group, n = 14). Both groups were required to complete high-intensity treadmill running for 25 minutes per session, three times weekly for four weeks. The AP group performed subliminal affective priming tasks while running. Affective responses were measured during and after running. Following each session, participants were permitted to continue exercising in the gym, with subsequent exercise duration (minutes) recorded. Exercise intention and exercise behavior were measured at baseline, mid-intervention (2 weeks), and post-intervention (4 weeks). A linear mixed model (LMM) was conducted using JAMOVI. Findings supported the significant main effect of group for remembered pleasure (F(1, 27) = 4.79, p = 0.037), enjoyment (F(1, 27) = 5.37, p = 0.028) and exercise intention (F(1, 27) = 5.43, p = 0.028) after exercise, suggesting that AP group showed higher post-exercise affective responses and higher intentions to future exercise after the first time of intervention and this effects continued to the end of the intervention. Notably, the interaction of group and time on exercise (F(3, 81) = 3.05, p = 0.033) was significant, indicating that participants in the AP group were more tended to continue exercising in the gym after intervention. No other significant interactions were detected. The four-week subliminal affective priming intervention improves affective responses to exercise and promotes instant exercise behavior is acceptable. Results of the present study support designing more research to explore the efficacy of subliminal affective priming for promoting exercise in multiple samples and different types of exercise.
Shao et al. (Thu,) studied this question.