Translating Exercise Intentions into Behavior: Personality and Social Cognitive Correlates

The purpose of this study was to detail the variability found in the exercise intention-behavior relationship and investigate social cognitive and personality correlates of successful intention translation. Participants were 300 undergraduate students who completed measures of exercise social cognition (theory of planned behavior), personality (five-factor model) and a two-week follow-up of exercise behavior. Results suggested intention translation at a frequency of zero was significantly more successful than intending to exercise at all other weekly frequencies. Moreover, intending to exercise one or two times per week resulted in better intention translation than intending to exercise four or more bouts per week. Discriminant function analysis and follow-up F-tests found instrumental attitude, affective attitude and perceived behavioral control (PBC) discriminated between nonintenders, unsuccessful intenders and successful intenders. Further, extroversion predicted unsuccessful intenders versus successful intenders. Results underscore the importance of attitude, PBC and extroversion as action control constructs in the exercise domain.