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Do You Find Exercise Pleasant or Unpleasant? The Affective Exercise Experiences (AFFEXX) Questionnaire
- Panteleimon Ekkekakis
- Zachary Zenko
- Spyridoula Vazou
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Description: Suggestions that affective experiences may influence motivation have appeared in the exercise-psychology literature throughout its history. However, research has been stagnant, in part due to the absence of an appropriate measure. We developed the 36-item Affective Exercise Experiences (AFFEXX) questionnaire that includes 10 scales representing a three-tiered conceptual model, according to which core affective experiences (pleasure-displeasure, energy-tiredness, calmness-tension) are influenced by six antecedent appraisals and, in turn, shape attraction or antipathy towards exercise. We report promising results from three studies (N = 1,799) evaluating internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and factorial, convergent, discriminant, construct, and criterion validity. We show that attraction-antipathy correlates with vigorous (.55) and moderate-to-vigorous (.48) self-reported physical activity, and accounts for 11-12% and 6-7% of additional variance, respectively, beyond variance explained by self-efficacy and behavioral intentions. Affective exercise experiences may be an underappreciated contributor to motivation. Interventions to improve affective experiences may hold promise for facilitating behavior change.