Experimental investigation of exercise-related hedonic responses to preferred and imposed media content.

Emily Frith,Paul D Loprinzi

doi:10.15171/hpp.2018.14

Abstract

Background: We evaluated the differential influence of preferred versus imposed media selections on distinct hedonic responses to an acute bout of treadmill walking.Methods: Twenty university students were recruited for this [160 person-visit] laboratory experiment, which employed a within-subject, counter-balanced design. Participants were exposed to 8 experimental conditions, including (1) Exercise Only, (2) Texting Only, (3) Preferred Phone Call, (4) Imposed Phone Call, (5) Preferred Music Playlist, (6) Imposed Music Playlist, (7)Preferred Video and (8) Imposed Video. During each visit (except Texting Only), participants completed a 10-minute bout of walking on the treadmill at a self-selected pace. Walking speed was identical for all experimental conditions. Before, at the midpoint of exercise, and post-exercise, participants completed the Feeling Scale (FS) and the Felt Arousal Scale (FAS) to measure acute hedonic response. The Affective Circumplex Scale was administered pre-exercise and post-exercise.Results: Significant pre-post change scores were observed for happy (Imposed Call: P=0.05;Preferred Music: P=0.02; Imposed Video: P=0.03), excited (Exercise Only: P=0.001; PreferredVideo: P=0.01; Imposed Video: P=0.03), sad (Preferred Music: P=0.05), anxious (ExerciseOnly: P=0.05; Preferred Video: P=0.01), and fatigue (Exercise Only: P=0.03; Imposed Video:P=0.002). For the FS all change scores were statistically significant from pre-to-mid and pre-topost (P<0.05).Conclusion: This experiment provides strong evidence that entertaining media platforms substantively influences hedonic responses to exercise. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Highlights

A digital revolution is dominating the modern fitness industry
Mean values were computed for variables including age, body mass index (BMI), treadmill speed, attitude towards walking on a treadmill, gender, and positive or negative emotions present in participant- and researcher-chosen music
Negative emotions were not reported for the imposed music playlist, as the linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC) was used to compute scores for positive and negative emotions

Summary

Introduction

A digital revolution is dominating the modern fitness industry. Smart phones offer portable, personal, and customizable features, which interact to offer individuals the opportunity to mix physical activity and entertainment into a heterogeneous cocktail of unprecedented social autonomy. Exercise facilities continuously broadcast popular music from public access systems, so even patrons exercising without their digital devices will be subjected to imposed media for the duration of their gym activities.[1] The popularity of wearable fitness tracking applications (apps) has increased in free-living physical activity settings,[2] and modern music applications have developed algorithms to build personalized playlists for individual subscribers.[3] Health and wellness apps are cost-effective and enable viral dissemination of information,[4] promoting the transcendence of social support networks spanning race, social class, education, and economic status. Conclusion: This experiment provides strong evidence that entertaining media platforms substantively influences hedonic responses to exercise.

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