11.2: The Importance of Pleasant Exercise Experiences

Imagine that you return from work in the evening and you have an array of choices for your activity. You could relax, browse the internet, watch television, stream movies, study, get prepared for your next day of work, or exercise. Why is it that studying and exercising are preferable for our long-term interests, but so often avoided in favor of an alternative?

During leisure-time, people often choose the activities that make them feel good and avoid activities that make them feel bad. Repeating experiences that feel good and avoiding experiences that feel bad is the basic premise of Hedonic theory (Ekkekakis & Dafermos, 2012). The pleasure and displeasure people experience has been recognized as an important predictor of behavior for millennia (see Ekkekakis & Dafermos, 2012). Although engaging in exercise may be of great benefit for our long-term health and well-being, the tendency of humans to maximize pleasure may lead them to suboptimal or nonrational decisions and behaviors (Cabanac & Bonniot-Cabanac, 2007). In the case of exercising, this tendency may result in a person choosing a sedentary, but suboptimal, alternative.

As with other behaviors, affective responses—the pleasure or displeasure experienced during exercise—are related to current and predictive of future exercise behavior (Williams et al., 2012). For example, Williams and colleagues (2012) were interested in examining the relationships between affective responses during and after short, 10-minute moderate intensity treadmill walks. During and after the walks, participants responded to the Feeling Scale (Hardy & Rejeski, 1989; see Chapter 12; Zenko & Ladwig, 2021) to indicate how good or bad they were feeling, as a measure of the pleasure or displeasure experienced. In addition, participants were interviewed about their level of physical activity behavior in the last seven days. Participants who felt more positive during exercise reported more physical activity cross-sectionally (i.e., affective responses during exercise were related to self-reported physical activity behavior measured on the same day of exercise) and longitudinally (i.e., affective responses during exercise predicted self-reported physical activity when measured six months later). Interestingly, the pleasure and displeasure experienced while participants were seated and resting after exercise was not related to physical activity behavior, either cross-sectionally or longitudinally.

These general findings were supported by a systematic review (Rhodes & Kates, 2015). Rhodes and Kates (2015) reviewed 24 studies, of which four assessed the relations between affective responses during exercise and physical activity behavior. In both adolescents and adults, affective responses during exercise were related to physical activity behavior, while the authors suggested that “the evidence does not support a relationship between postexercise affective response and subsequent physical activity performance” (p. 725). Overall, the outcomes of the systematic review supported the idea that maximizing pleasure experienced during exercise may be the most influential correlate of future physical activity behavior.

11.2.1. Memories of the Past, Decisions about the Present

When making decisions and choices about behavior—such as the decision to exercise or not—it is important to acknowledge that decision makers may be biased, and the memories of pleasure and displeasure experienced during earlier exercise episodes may be distorted through cognitive filters and other biases in memory. The Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and colleagues (Kahneman et al., 1997) distinguished between several types of utility, including experienced utility and decision utility. Experienced utility can be described as the hedonic experience of an episode, for example, the affective responses during exercise¹. An exercise experience that is more pleasant has higher experienced utility than a less pleasant (or more unpleasant) exercise session. Decision utility is inferred from the choices people are observed to make. For instance, if a person chooses a sedentary alternative such as television viewing instead of exercise, then television viewing would be said to have more decision utility. Interestingly, a large research literature suggests that decision utility is not a direct result of experienced utility. Instead, it is possible that an experience such as exercising can be remembered differently (e.g.,as more or less positive than it actually was), and this remembered utility may inform predicted utility (i.e., predictions about how pleasant or unpleasant future exercise experiences will be), which in turn may inform decision utility (i.e., whether someone chooses to exercise, or not). As Kahneman and colleagues put it, the factors “that determine what people do are not pleasure and pain, but memories of pleasure and pain” (Kahneman et al., 1997, p. 385, emphasis added). This is illustrated in Figure 11.1, showing the theorized relations between affective responses to exercise, remembered utility, predicted utility, and decision utility. We suggest that some of the relationships depicted in Figure 11.1 may be conscious or unconscious.

Memories of an activity or event may be biased by many factors, such as the temporal characteristics of an exercise experience (described later), as well as cognitive filters and cognitive appraisals, including individual biases and cognitive appraisals about the importance of exercise (Karnaze et al., 2017), and individual differences such as personality. It is reasonable to suggest, for example, that a person with a strong optimism bias and tendency to predict future experiences will be positive will also be more likely to predict that engaging in an exercise bout will be pleasant and enjoyable. Future research is necessary to test this hypothesis. In short, cognitively mediated variables such as remembered utility (e.g., “How did the exercise make you feel?”), predicted utility, affective forecasts, or anticipated affective responses (e.g., “How will the exercise make you feel?”), and other affect-laden cognitive constructs such as affective attitudes and affective judgments may be influenced at least in part by previous affective responses to exercise experiences (also see Ekkekakis et al., 2018), but affective responses to exercise are not the only determinant of these cognitive constructs.

Figure 11.1: Theorized Influences of Remembered Utility, Predicted Utility, and Decision Utility

Note. Notice that affective responses to exercise, the focus of this chapter, are just one influence of remembered utility. Affective responses during exercise (an indicator of experienced utility) rarely, if ever, fully explain the remembered utility of exercise. Biases in memory and cognitive filters and appraisals also influence remembered utility.

Figure 11.2: Conceptualized Pathways in Which Affective Responses to Exercise Influence Future Exercise Behavior

The dotted line in Figure 11.2 represents the overall relationship between affective responses to exercise and exercise behavior. Several mediators of the relationship between affective responses to exercise and exercise behavior are theorized. Here, we suggest that affective responses to exercise may impact future exercise behavior through affect-laden cognitions or cognitions about affect (e.g., thoughts about whether the exercise makes one feel prideful or shameful, embarrassed or accomplished, and expectations of the increased sense of energy or euphoria one may experience after exercising). These cognitions about affect are also expected to be influenced by messaging strategies and other techniques for changing cognitive appraisals about exercise (e.g., information and media campaigns about how exercise makes people feel good, and how exercise may reduce depression). Indeed, affect-laden cognitive constructs have been shown to relate to exercise intentions (Helfer et al., 2015) and behavior (Geers et al., 2017; Kiviniemi et al., 2007). These suggested pathways are shown in Figure 11.2 and illustrated by the boxes labeled “Cognitive Appraisals about Exercise” and “Cognitions about Affect”.

11.2.2. Automatic Affective Valuations

We also adopt the theoretical predictions of the affective-reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise (Brand & Ekkekakis, 2018; Chapter 4, Brand & Ekkekakis, 2021). According to affective-reflective theory, automatic affective valuations (Figure 11.2) are automatic positive or negative associations with physical activity or exercise. The positivity or negativity may be the “result of repeated experiences of emotions mediated by cognitive appraisals (e.g., pride, embarrassment) or a result of repeated exercise experiences of core affective reactions not necessarily mediated by cognitive appraisals (e.g., sense of physical reinvigoration, pain, bodily discomfort)” (Brand & Ekkekakis, 2018, p. 54). In turn, automatic affective valuations serve as a predictor of physical activity or exercise behavior. Therefore, based on the affective-reflective theory, automatic affective valuations serve as a link and mediate the relation between affective responses to exercise and exercise behavior (see Figure 11.2). Taken together, it seems imperative that practitioners should maximize the pleasure experienced during exercise because affective responses to exercise are predictive of future exercise behavior; this relationship is likely mediated by cognitions about affect and automatic affective valuations.

Learning Exercise One

Describe why having an exerciser experience exercise as pleasant or unpleasant is important, and how the changing the experience of exercise might influence behavior differently than providing information and education about the various benefits of exercise (e.g., improving cardiovascular health, reducing risk of disease).

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Reference

¹ When “utility” of exercise is conceptualized as the pleasure or displeasure associated with exercise, as is the case in this chapter, the terms remembered pleasure and predicted pleasure can serve as synonyms for remembered utility and predicted utility, respectively. An additional synonym for predicted utility is forecasted pleasure, and affective forecasts are predictions about future affective experiences.