Abstract
This research aimed to associate for the first time in the literature Regulatory Focus and Self-Determination theories to understand the dynamics of physical activity practice in the health context. Two cross-sectional studies were conducted with 603 (Study 1) and 395 (Study 2) French volunteer participants aged from 18 to 69 and 19 to 71 respectively, who were healthy or concerned by a health condition. The main results of structural equation modeling analyses demonstrated that across the two studies, health promotion focus was positively associated with intrinsic motivation (.44 < β < .74, p < .001), integrated regulation (.47 < β < .72, p < .001), identified regulation (.40 < β < .69, p < .001) and introjected regulation (.41 < β < .53, p < .001), whereas health prevention focus was positively related with external regulation (.31 < β < .45, p < .001) and amotivation (.32 < β < .38, p < .001). Bootstrapping analyses main results in Study 2 showed that health promotion focus was indirectly associated with physical activity through intrinsic motivation (95% CI [.02 to .11]), integrated regulation (95% CI [.00 to .08]), identified regulation (95% CI [.00 to .09]) and introjected regulation (95% CI [.04 to .12]), whereas health prevention focus was indirectly associated with physical activity through external regulation (95% CI [.00 to .12]). These studies reveal meaningful associations between Regulatory Focus and Self-Determination theories’ variables which support the relevance of associating these two models to understand the processes underlying the physical activity practice.
Highlights
In recent years, the consequences of a lack of Physical Activity (PA), both for individuals’ health and in terms of costs for health systems [1] have led governments and health professionals to wonder about their capacity to modify people’s lifestyles through various PA promotion strategies
Promotion focus being favorable to support for the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness, all of which are conceived as the “essential nutriments” of the development of selfdetermination [17], we hypothesized that this focus in a health context would be positively related with more self-determined forms of motivation for PA
The main results showed that in the whole sample and regardless of gender, age, and health-status groups, health promotion focus was positively related with intrinsic motivation (.84 < β < .62, p < .001), and with integrated regulation (.62 < β < .77, p < .001), identified regulation (.63 < β < .72, p < .001), and introjected regulation (.37 < β < .66, p < .001), whereas health prevention focus was positively related with external regulation (.32 < β < .55, p < .001) and amotivation (.24 < β < .48, p < .001)
Summary
The consequences of a lack of Physical Activity (PA), both for individuals’ health and in terms of costs for health systems [1] have led governments and health professionals to wonder about their capacity to modify people’s lifestyles through various PA promotion strategies. People recalled more support for autonomy, competence and relatedness needs in promotion conditions compared with prevention conditions, and experiences of higher need support are more likely to be labeled as promotion-focused rather than prevention-focused In line with these previous works, the overall purpose of this paper is to associate for the first time in the literature the RFT and SDT to better understand the dynamics of PA practice in a health context. Promotion focus being favorable to support for the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness, all of which are conceived as the “essential nutriments” of the development of selfdetermination [17], we hypothesized that this focus in a health context would be positively related with more self-determined forms of motivation for PA (i.e., intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, and identified regulation). On the other hand, considering the predominantly negative associations reported in the literature between controlled forms of motivation and PA [13], we hypothesized that health prevention focus could be negatively related with PA through introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation
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