The purpose of this study was to examine the association between engaging in minimum levels of physical activity as defined by ACSM and perceived quality of life. A total of 43 college students were included in a repeated measures, quasi-experimental design research study that produced an overall retention rate of 65%, which resulted in 15 students being placed in the treatment group, and 28 students being placed in the control group. Analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to compare the quality of life mean scores over three administrations of the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI), which resulted in no significant main effects for either the time measure or the group measure, but did produce a significant interaction effect. Post hoc analyses showed there was a significant difference between the treatment and control groups' quality of life mean scores only during the second administration of the instrument. Further analysis showed that the control group had significantly higher quality of life domain scores for six of the 16 quality of life domains. There were no significant differences between groups across any of the physiological measures. These findings did not support previous research that increasing individuals' level of physical activity will enhance their perceived quality of life. Instead, this study only provokes more questions about the connection between physical activity and perceived quality of life.

Deciding to exercise requires trade-offs between immediate and delayed benefits. These momentary decisions may be moderated by personality such that patterns of individual behavior emerge. The aim of the current study was to determine if higher levels of optimism and lower levels of delay discounting were related to exercise frequency. A sample of 360 undergraduate students completed a survey study related to understanding the choices made by undergraduates and how other factors relate to their decision-making. The survey included measures of optimism, delayed discounting, and self-reported exercise frequency in four domains: cardiovascular, resistance, sports, active lifestyle. Hierarchical linear regression was used to examine optimism and delay discounting as predictors of exercise frequency. Optimism and delay discounting were negatively correlated, but neither was related to exercise frequency. Furthermore, optimism and delay discounting were not significantly related to frequency spent in cardiovascular, resistance, or active lifestyle exercise. However, women scoring higher in delay discounting were more likely to participate in physical sports. The present study helps inform future research by showing potentially important psychosocial variables related to optimism, delay discounting, and exercise.

Music is used to distract, energize, and entertain during exercise by producing positive psychological and physiological responses. Specifically, listening to music during exercise enhances performance, increases motivation, improves affect, and optimizes arousal. Researchers have identified several elements of music that may moderate this relationship, including lyrics. However, few studies to date have examined the influence of motivational lyrics on psychological and physiological states during exercise. Thus, the primary purpose was to investigate the effects of lyrics in music on motivation, affect, arousal, and perceived exertion during moderate intensity cycling. Thirty (Mage = 21.0 ± 2.9 years old) college-aged individuals performed three, 8-min acute bouts of moderate-intensity exercise on a cycle ergometer during music with lyrics (ML), music without lyrics (MNL), and no music control (MC) conditions. Measures of motivation, affect, arousal, and perceived exertion were taken before and after a 6-min warm-up, every 2-min during the exercise bout, and following a 2-min cool-down. For ML and MNL conditions, participants reported higher motivation, affect, and arousal during exercise relative to the MC condition. As expected, RPE increased throughout the exercise period, with no condition differences observed. Additionally, there were no differences in responses between the ML and MNL conditions. Collectively, these results suggest that music, regardless of lyrical content, can enhance psychological responses during exercise. The current findings may help address common exercise barriers and inform exercise practitioners on music selection to improve exercise adherence.

No description available.

The current study examined if students' levels of social physique anxiety vary depending on the type of exercise setting they select. The study determined the degree to which social physique anxiety changed over the course of semester-long involvements in different exercise settings.

Retirement from sport can be difficult for athletes. Physically, retirement is associated with challenges such as weight gain, muscle loss, and degradation of physical skills. Psychologically, retirement has been linked to increased identity confusion, depression, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating. Research shows that exercise is a way athletes cope with stressors such as psychosocial pressure and retirement. However, exercise is positively correlated with psychological well-being for some individuals, whereas for others exercise is associated with increased levels of depression, anxiety, and body dissatisfaction. Reasons for exercise behavior, as well as the type of exercise in which someone engages, may explain the contrasting psychological outcomes of exercise. I examined perceived societal pressures, exercise, and reasons for exercise in relation to the psychological well-being (i.e., depression, satisfaction with life, body satisfaction) of 218 college female athletes who had been retired from 2-6 years. Through regression analysis, I examined the extent to which the predictors were related to each measure of psychological well-being, controlling for BMI and years since retirement. For life satisfaction (Adj. R2 = .08), exercising to meet potential romantic partner was significant (β = -.158). Higher levels of depressive symptoms (Adj. R2 = .15) were predicted by exercising to improve appearance (β = .198) and feeling pressure to exercise (β = .212). For body satisfaction (Adj. R2 = .42), exercising to prevent illness/injury (β = .197) and to prepare to compete in sport competitions (β = .141) were associated with the increased body satisfaction, whereas a higher BMI (β = -.193) and exercising to improve appearance (β = -.167) were related to decreased body satisfaction. Future research might address psychological predictors immediately post retirement, as this is when retirement may be more stressful.

The complex functioning of the human body produces the biological, historical and environmental contingencies of lived existence. These experiences of embodiment are chiasmic, dialectical and dialogical, and underpin the narrative dilemmas we create through the storied nature of our attempts to make sense of them. In testifying my own embodiment this autobiographical form of sensual scholarship emphasizes the subjective basis for my body’s psychology. By developing the complicating action segments of my life story told through interview data into a chronologically-ordered and textually- layered account of personally significant memories, I craft a story of my panicking body. My upbringing was influenced by discourses that reinforced parental and family affiliation at the expense of my feeling body. Unravelling my need to exercise as a contingency of this affiliation provides retrospective meaning to the distress my panicking caused. Situating my feelings, thoughts, emotions and actions within the broader constraints of my family’s history, community, religion and culture reveals the contingent nature of my embodiment. Describing the shifting contingencies of a life lived since my upbringing in the small, rural town of Inglewood, New Zealand, provides the opportunity to recognize and to re-align the dialectics of identity that help to make up my body’s psychology. Juxtaposing this narrative meaning-making are my revelations of experiential integration achieved through the flow of exercise. Understood as an extension of my body’s fundamental sensuality, this evolutionally-refined capacity for engagement underpins my lived experiencing. Together these sentient and reflexive forms of testimony confirm the inherence of my sensuality and the circumstance of self-hood, and invite you, the reader, to explore the workings of your own body. By revealing the sensual and symbolic strands of my embodiment this story of human contingency reveals something of the fleshy consciousness that we all share, not by speaking for anyone else, but by calling attention to the taken-for-granted nature of its unfolding. By arguing for a psychology more relevant to lived experiencing, my thesis questions the body of Western science and, in particular, psychology’s version of it. Articulating the felt nature of my experiencing situates my mind back in my body and, in doing so, fleshes out its psychology. While the insights shared here are personal, the relevance of the felt-body is found in the ways it becomes discoursed and narrated.

[Truncated abstract] Enjoyable physical education (PE) has the potential to promote adolescent involvement in healthy activities outside the school setting. Disturbingly, evidence exists that many students do not enjoy PE and do not believe that it meets their needs. Indeed, a number of studies have documented an age-related decline in PE enjoyment among students. The research reported here is based on the assumption that a deeper understanding of the enjoyment processes could guide researchers and assist teachers in making PE classes more enjoyable for students. Given the fact that enjoyment is a product of multiple processes, a model of enjoyment developed by Scanlan and Lewthwaite (1986) was viewed as a potentially useful framework to guide this research. The validity of this model has been established in youth sport settings. However, further studies are needed to examine the utility of this framework in PE settings. In STUDY 1 (Chapter 3), a measurement instrument was constructed based on the Scanlan and Lewthwaite (1986) model. Content validity of the instrument was established by obtaining feedback from eight experts in psychology and four highly experienced secondary school teachers. ... Moreover, the results of correlation analyses again revealed significant positive relationships between PE teaching processes and enjoyment of PE. Unique findings in this study centered on the specific aspects of PA that were positively related to PE enjoyment. More v specifically, significant positive relationships were also obtained between PE enjoyment and self-reports of exercise duration (min-per-week: r = .30, p <.001), exercise intensity (r = .28, p < .001), exercise habit strength (r = .29, p < .001), and exercise stage-of-change (rho = .23, p < .001). Together, the findings from these studies provide support for the Scanlan and Lewthwaite (1986) model within the PE context. In addition, the findings provide guidance about how PA programs can be structured to maximize student enjoyment of PE. In terms of program structure, student enjoyment may be fostered by considering six processes. These processes are: self-referent competency, other-referent competency, teacher-generated excitement, activity-generated excitement, peer interaction, and parental encouragement. By emphasizing these processes, teachers will not only increase student enjoyment of PE but also increase the likelihood of involvement in PA outside of the school setting. Given global trends toward decreases in PA and increases in obesity, these outcomes could have important benefits for reducing public health costs in future.

In response to challenging situations physiological and psychological adaptations result in elevated levels of arousal and when these levels are 'optimal' performance is enhanced. There are however, limitations to the amount of physiological and mental stimulation one can tolerate, with cumulative fatigue effects being the outcome when stressful conditions are imposed on the individual over an extended period of time. As a result of the extreme physical and cognitive demands placed on military forces while in combat, with soldiers being thrust into battle and required to make critical life-or-death determining decisions followed by appropriate motor responses, the physical and psychological capabilities of the troops are pushed to maximal limits, often resulting in undesirable decrements in physical and mental performance, with consequential human and materiel losses. Thirty-two soldiers participated in a battery of combat-related field and laboratory tests, first under 'normal' conditions with no prior physical activity and then immediately after the participation of an intensive bout of exercise. Physiological and perceptual responses plus standard of performance were measured at various stages of testing. Results of the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE), Body Discomfort Scale and heart rate responses revealed significantly higher levels of psychophysical strai,n in response to the strenuous physical activity. Despite these findings, the electromyographic (EMG) activity and efficiency of the combat-related skills were not negatively affected. Rather, nominal improvements in post-activity performance were noted, specifically response time, and this was attributed to elevated arousal and activation as a result of the exercise that was of sufficient duration to enhance arousal without imposing long term cumulative fatigue effects.

D.Litt. et Phil. / An escalation in the mortality rate in Western society directly attributable to destructive lifestyles, has generated intensive research into the causal link between health and lifestyle. Early research highlighted a positive correlation between participation in physical activity and enhanced physical health. The complexity of causal interactions between physical activity and general well-being has given rise to a more focused examination of various elements of health and the activities which support it. The scope of research has extended to include physical activity and its effect on mental health, as well as physical activity and its ability to create a positive state of mind. Results have been sufficiently impressive that medical practitioners and psychologists now commonly use programs of physical activity in the treatment of stress, depression and anxiety. A positive correlation between physical activity and improved state of mind has been primarily attributed to enhanced physical fitness and better biological functioning of the body as a result of physical activity. Researchers refer to the role that physical activity plays in stimulating the secretion of norepinephrine in the central nervous system. Higher levels of norepinephrine in the body appear to lead to an improved state of mind.