Motives matter: A diary study on the relationship between job stressors and exercise after work.

This article examines the relationship between the experience of job stressors and engagement in physical exercise after work in employees’ daily lives. We examine exercise motives as moderators in this relationship and demonstrate that time spent on exercising improves day-specific positive affective states. We conducted a daily survey study over 5 consecutive working days with 120 employees. Multilevel modeling showed that employees with strong exercise motives (i.e., social recognition, appearance, strength and endurance) were able to initiate exercise behavior after stressful days at work. As predicted, exercise after work was positively related to positive activated affect and serenity at bedtime. Drawing on the ego-depletion model, our study contributes to the explanation of previous inconsistent findings on the relationship between job stressors and physical exercise by demonstrating the importance of individuals’ exercise motives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)