Momentary Dynamics Of Motivation States For Physical Activity And Sedentarism

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the momentary dynamics of motivation states to move and to rest. Methods: Twenty-one community-dwelling adults in the USA (Mage = 37.7, 52.4% female, 30% non-White) participated in the study. We utilized ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to track real-time motivations to move and to be sedentary, employing the 13-item Cravings for Rest and Volitional Energy Expenditure (CRAVE) scale (“Right now” version), which has two subscales- Move and Rest. Participants responded to five daily prompts, spaced approximately three hours apart, over a period of nine days. Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling (DSEM) was employed to analyze the autoregressive impact of previous motivational states on subsequent motivation to be active or inactive. Results: We found that previous urge to move has a significant autoregressive effect on future urge to move (φ = 0.25). Similarly, we found that previous Rest scores had an autoregressive effect on future Rest scores (φ = 0.23). We entered Rest as a time-variant covariate to assess cross-lagged effects of Move on Rest, and vice-versa. While we found that including Rest as a covariate increased the autoregressive effect of Move (φ = 0.31) and Rest (φ = 0.26), we did not find a significant effect of Move on Rest and vice-versa. Discussion: These results show that the state motivation for movement has a significant autoregressive effect, where greater Move scores at the current time point significantly increase Move scores in the future. Moreover, we found that Rest has a significant autoregressive effect, where greater motivation to be sedentary at the current time point leads to greater motivation for sedentarism in the future. Our study did not find evidence of crosstalk between these motivation states; however, this effect may be observed in larger samples.