Abstract
This study explored the correlation between mental toughness (MT) and physical activity (PA), and the moderation role between PA intention and subsequent behavior among college students and wage earners. Five hundred ninety-one college students (251 male, 340 female) aged from 19 to 24 and 285 (157 male, 127 female) wage earners aged from 27 to 58 recruited from seven colleges and five cities in China. A Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) questionnaire, MT Inventory, and the International PA Questionnaire was completed online. Results showed that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control explained 46.5 and 38.3% variance in PA intention among college students and wage earners separately. Intention predicted PA behavior significantly among college students and wage earners. Structural equation modeling indicated that the TPB model and the moderation model have an adequate to good fit except the TPB model among wage earners. MT was positively correlated with PA among college students and wage earners and had a significant moderation role in intention-behavior gap among college students and partially affected the transfer of PA intention to behavior among college students. Individuals with high MT had high levels of PA regardless of intention, while PA of those with low MT was low and unstable. Future research should further explore the correlation between intention and PA and the moderation role of MT in different populations using a longitudinal study in order to better understand the correlation between intention and PA, and the transition from intention to PA and better guidance PA intervention to promote PA.
Highlights
Physical activity (PA) refers to any type of physical activity (PA) with energy consumption due to skeletal muscle contraction, such as daily work, housework, physical exercise, and activities for entertainment (Caspersen et al, 1985)
This study explored the correlation between Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs and PA, and the moderating role of mental toughness (MT) in PA the intention-behavior gap among college students and wage earners
The TPB constructs could be relevant in explaining the variance of PA intentions, with 46.5% among college students and 38.3% among wage earners, respectively, which was consistent with previous studies (Armitage, 2005; Conner et al, 2011; Rhodes and Bruijn, 2013; Gucciardi, 2015; Hannan et al, 2015; Stolte et al, 2017; Xu et al, 2018; Wang and Zheng, 2020; Zhu et al, 2020)
Summary
Physical activity (PA) refers to any type of PA with energy consumption due to skeletal muscle contraction, such as daily work, housework, physical exercise, and activities for entertainment (Caspersen et al, 1985). In China, according to the 2019 General Administration of Sport survey, only 33.9% of adults participate in PA (General Administration of Sport of China, 2018) in China. Another two studies found that only 33.6% of urban children and adolescents participate in PA (Jia et al, 2012), and there was low level of PA in Chinese residents, especially in obese people (Tian et al, 2016). In the past few decades, research explained PA behavior by looking at individual internal factors, environmental factors, and the characteristics of the PA itself. This led to the development of models, such as the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1974), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991), Trans-theoretical Model (Prochaska and Diclemente, 1983), or the integration of several theoretical models to explain PA
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