Effortful self-control as a potential target for physical activity maintenance
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sustaining physical activity is essential for long-term health benefits, yet most theory-driven interventions often show only short-lived effects. The reliance on effortful self-control may be critical for promoting behavioral maintenance and explaining why autonomous motivation and habit support long-term engagement in physical activity. This investigation was cross-sectional and examined whether effortful self-control is associated with physical activity behavior (Study 1) and whether it mediates the associations between autonomous motivation and habit with physical activity (Study 2). We also tested whether temptations mediate the associations between autonomous motivation and habit with effortful self-control. In Study 1, 897 adults completed a single-item measure of effortful self-control and self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). In Study 2, 603 adults completed multi-item measures of effortful self-control, autonomous motivation, habit, and temptations, along with self-reported MVPA. In Study 1, higher effortful self-control was associated with lower MVPA, r s = -.56, 95% CI [-.61, -.51]. This association was replicated in Study 2, r s = -.51, 95% CI [-.58, -.44]. Mediation analyses showed that the relationships between autonomous motivation and habit with MVPA have a significant indirect effect through effortful self-control. Additionally, temptations partially mediated the associations between both motivational constructs and effortful self-control. These findings provide preliminary support for the role of effortful self-control as a psychological process linking autonomous motivation and habit with physical activity behavior. Reducing the amount of effortful self-control for physical activity, by strengthening motivation for physical activity and weakening temptations, may be a promising strategy to support sustained 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 | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 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".