Prior behaviour: subjects were asked to rate how frequently they took exercise
(‘include activities such as aerobics, badminton, jogging, etc., but not activities which
form part of your everyday life, such as walking to the bus stop, dancing at discos,
etc.’).
Desires and self-predictions: subjects were asked to rate (1) their desire to take regular
exercise (‘I want to take regular exercise’) and (2) their self-prediction of exercise
behaviour (‘I will take exercise during the next six months’).
Attitude: subjects were asked to rate their attitude towards taking regular exercise on
a set of scales: worrying–reassuring, unpleasant–pleasant, punishing–rewarding,
unenjoyable–enjoyable, useless–useful, unattractive–attractive.
Attitude variability: subjects were asked to rate their variability in attitude to exercise
by stating how they agreed/disagreed with the following statements: ‘At times, my
feelings about taking exercise are more favourable than at others’, ‘I have conflicting
feelings about taking exercise’. In addition they were asked to rate ‘My feelings about
taking exercise... do not vary at all/vary a great deal’ on a seven-point Likert scale.
Subjective norm: subjects rated the statement ‘Most people who are important to me
think I should take regular exercise’.
Perceived behavioural control: subjects rated the following statements: (1) ‘For me to
take regular exercise is... extremely difficult/ extremely easy’; (2) ‘How much
control do you have over taking regular exercise’; and (3) ‘If I wanted to I could easily
take regular exercise’.
Behavioural beliefs: subjects were asked to rate beliefs about exercise such as ‘Taking
regular exercise increases agility and suppleness’, and to place a value on these beliefs
such as ‘Increasing agility and suppleness is... extremely bad/good’.
Normative beliefs: subjects were asked to rate whether ‘members of my family’, ‘my
friends’, ‘the media’ and ‘people I know who exercise regularly’ would think that
they should take regular exercise, and to what extent they would comply with what
these people thought.
Control beliefs: subjects were asked to rate whether factors such as ‘a lack of time’,
‘other commitments’, ‘laziness’, ‘not being near to facilities’ would prevent them from
taking regular exercise.At time 2, the subjects were asked about their frequency of exercising (as in prior
behaviour). This variable was included in order to examine which variables at time 1
predicted future behaviour at time 2.Results
The data were analysed using correlation analysis, which examines associations between
the different variables (e.g. an increase in a positive attitude towards exercise is related to
an increase in the frequency of exercise) and regression analysis, which examines which
variables are the best predictor of the dependent variable (e.g. age and frequency of
current behaviour are the best predictors of future behaviour). The results of the180 HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY