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Abstract
Pre-exercise fluid intake is an important healthy behavior for maintaining athletes’ sports performances and health. However, athletes’ behavioral adherence to fluid intake and its underlying psychological mechanisms have not been investigated. This prospective study aimed to use a health psychology model that integrates the self-determination theory and the theory of planned behavior for understanding pre-exercise fluid intake among athletes. Participants (n = 179) were athletes from college sport teams who completed surveys at two time points. Baseline (Time 1) assessment comprised psychological variables of the integrated model (i.e., autonomous and controlled motivation, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention) and fluid intake (i.e., behavior) was measured prospectively at one month (Time 2). Path analysis showed that the positive association between autonomous motivation and intention was mediated by subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Controlled motivation positively predicted the subjective norm. Intentions positively predicted pre-exercise fluid intake behavior. Overall, the pattern of results was generally consistent with the integrated model, and it was suggested that athletes’ pre-exercise fluid intake behaviors were associated with the motivational and social cognitive factors of the model. The research findings could be informative for coaches and sport scientists to promote athletes’ pre-exercise fluid intake behaviors.
Highlights
Exercise is defined as a planned, structured, and repetitive physical activity for improving or maintaining physical fitness [1]
The present study aims to apply a unified health psychology model that integrates self-determination theory (SDT) [7] and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) [8] in order to understand athletes’ pre-exercise fluid intake
Focusing first on the proposed prediction of the three social cognitive variables by autonomous motivation (H1), our results are parallel to earlier research that showed that autonomous motivation was a positive predictor of the three social cognitive variables [9,12,14]
Summary
Exercise is defined as a planned, structured, and repetitive physical activity for improving or maintaining physical fitness [1]. According to the TPB [8], three sets of social cognitive variables (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control [PBC]) positively predict behavior via intention. The theoretical components of SDT and TPB are merged into the integrated model, such that autonomous motivation (rather than controlled motivation) from SDT is speculated to positively predict attitude, subjective norm, and PBC from the TPB These three social-cognitive variables further link intention and behavior according to the tenets of the TPB [9]. Studies that are guided by the integrated framework generally indicated that autonomous motivation positively predicted attitude, subjective norm, and PBC, while controlled motivation typically exerted either small or no effects on these three belief-based TPB constructs [12,14]. Correlations between gender and major study variables are omitted
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