Apathy, Intentions, Explicit Attitudes, and Approach-Avoidance Tendencies in Physical Activity Behavior
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background. Greater behavioral apathy has been shown to be associated with lower engagement in physical activity. However, the mechanisms underlying this association remain overlooked and poorly understood. Intentions, explicit attitudes, and approach-avoidance tendencies toward physical activity may play a central role in the relationship, given their strong links to motivation and physical activity. Methods. An online study was conducted in 365 participants aged 54±18 years. All measures were assessed using questionnaires, except approach-avoidance tendencies, which were derived from reaction times in an approach-avoidance task. Component mediation analyses based on multiple linear regressions were conducted to examine whether the intention to be physically active mediated the relationship between behavioral apathy levels and usual physical activity levels, and whether explicit attitudes and approach-avoidance tendencies mediated the relationship between behavioral apathy and the intention. Results. Results showed that weaker intentions to be physically active mediated the association between higher behavioral apathy and lower usual weekly levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. In addition, explicit attitudes mediated the effect of behavioral apathy on intentions to be physically active. Results on approach-avoidance tendencies showed a significant three-way interaction between apathy, stimulus (physical activity vs. sedentary behavior), and action direction (approach vs. avoidance) on corrected reaction time (b = 19.6; 95CI = 2.0 to 37.3; p = .029), with higher apathy being associated with a greater tendency to avoid physical activity stimuli and to approach sedentary stimuli. However, we found no evidence suggesting that these tendencies mediated the effect of apathy on intentions or habitual physical activity. Based on our data, a mean item score greater than 34.5% of the scale range (e.g., >3.07 on a 1–7 scale) is indicative of behavioral apathy. Conclusion. This study provides new insights into the role of intentions, explicit attitudes, and approach-avoidance tendencies toward physical activity in the relationship between behavioral apathy levels and the engagement in physical activity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".