The Evolving Understanding of Physical Activity Behavior

Abstract The health benefits of regular, moderate-intensity physical activity have enormous scope and evidence, yet few people engage in the behavior. As a response, physical activity behavior science has seen considerable research attention over the last 30 years, dominated mainly by work in the social cognitive tradition. The purpose of this paper is to overview the extensions and challenges to this approach, including the gap between good intentions and behavior, the disparity between affective judgments and instrumental attitudes, differences in perceived capability and perceived opportunity, augmentation of expectations with volitional regulatory behaviors, and the relative contributions of implicit/reflexive and reflective factors that explain physical activity. The paper concludes with a proposed schematic, called multi-process action control, that represents an attempt to bridge the social cognitive tradition with contemporary theorizing and evidence in physical activity behavior change science.