Khudair Mohammed, Cheval Boris, Ling Fiona Chun Man, Hettinga Florentina Johanna, Tempest Gavin Daniel
Department of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, Northumbria University, United Kingdom; School of Psychology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom.
Department of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, École Normale Supérieure de Rennes, Bruz, France; VIPS(2) Laboratory, University of Rennes, France.
Psychol Sport Exerc. 2025 Jan;76:102750. doi: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2024.102750. Epub 2024 Sep 21.
Despite substantial research efforts to increase engagement in physical activity (PA), children are not sufficiently active. Dual-process theories suggest that PA behavior regulation occurs through both controlled (i.e., reflective, conscious) and automatic (i.e., non-reflective, less conscious) processes. Automatic processes depend on affective valuations and attitudes towards PA and have been shown to predict PA behavior. However, their role in PA behavior regulation in children remains unclear. Therefore, the current study investigated the unique association of automatic attitudes towards PA on self-reported seven-day PA recall, after accounting for the effects of known controlled precursors of PA (i.e., explicit attitudes, PA self-efficacy, and PA intentions). In a cross-sectional design, 69 children (age = 10.8 ± 0.6 years) completed the Single-Category Implicit Association Task (SC-IAT) and self-reported measures of PA and controlled precursors of PA. In a hierarchical regression analysis, controlled processes accounted for 28.3 % of the variance in PA behavior. Although the bivariate association between automatic attitudes and PA was not significant, the association between them became significant but negative in the fully adjusted model (b = -1.70; p = 0.025). The fully adjusted model accounted for 35.0 % of the variance in PA. In summary, the findings indicated that both controlled and automatic processes predicted PA in children, although the association with automatic attitudes was not in the expected direction in the adjusted model. Future studies are warranted to further understand the role of automatic processes in the regulation of PA behavior in children.
尽管为提高儿童身体活动（PA）参与度进行了大量研究工作，但儿童的活动量仍不足。双加工理论表明，PA行为调节通过控制（即反思性、有意识）和自动（即非反思性、较少意识）两种过程发生。自动过程依赖于对PA的情感评估和态度，并已被证明可预测PA行为。然而，它们在儿童PA行为调节中的作用仍不明确。因此，本研究在考虑了已知的PA控制前因（即明确态度、PA自我效能和PA意图）的影响后，调查了对PA的自动态度与自我报告的七天PA回忆之间的独特关联。在横断面设计中，69名儿童（年龄 = 10.8 ± 0.6岁）完成了单类别内隐联想测验（SC-IAT）以及PA和PA控制前因的自我报告测量。在分层回归分析中，控制过程解释了PA行为中28.3%的方差。虽然自动态度与PA之间的双变量关联不显著，但在完全调整模型中，它们之间的关联变得显著且为负（b = -1.70；p = 0.025）。完全调整模型解释了PA中35.0%的方差。总之，研究结果表明，控制和自动过程都能预测儿童的PA，尽管在调整模型中与自动态度的关联并非预期方向。未来研究有必要进一步了解自动过程在儿童PA行为调节中的作用。
