Comparing theories to explain exercise behaviour: a socio-cognitive approach

Abstract

Consumer education plays an important role in cultivating the beliefs that exercise helps to improve one's health status. In this vein, a solid theoretical model that provides insight into what motivates exercise participation is essential for managerial formulation of health intervention strategies. Addressing the calls for more solid theoretical work to explain exercise behaviour, this study test and compare empirically the predictive validity of three social cognitive theoriesthe theory of reasoned action (TRA) and planned behaviour (TPB) and the modified TPB (with an additional path from subjective norms to attitude) -in predicting exercise intention. Crosssectional data was collected via self-administered surveys from a sample of adults in Malaysia. All three alternative models have achieved acceptable model fit to the data, and the TPB appeared to be a more superior to the alternative models. Given strong support for the secondorder TPB's application to exercise that is provided by our study, it seems feasible that desirable modifications in social cognitions especially the attitudinal components might lead to corresponding changes in the subjects' exercise intention. This study sets the ground for health professional, social marketers, and government to improve their understanding of exercise behaviour and, in turn, consumer welfare.

Social Marketing in Promoting Sustainable Healthy Lifestyle among Student Population

“…Therefore, hypotheses H 1 and H 2 were confirmed, which was not the case with the hypothesis H 3 . The existence of at least one of the named influences is in accordance to some previous researches [32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

“…Various cognitive theories may have a significant application within social marketing. In search of an adequate theoretical model of exercise behavior and physical activity, three theories were tested and compared: theory of reasoned action (TRA), theory of planned behavior (TPB) and modified TPB (with an additional link from subjective norms to attitudes) [32]. All models had satisfactory indicators' fit, while the standard TPB model was proved to be superior.…”

How University Entrepreneurship Support Affects College Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions: An Empirical Analysis from China

“…Among them, EA is the most important in predicting and developing students' EI (H5, β = 0.6735 ***), followed by ESE (H7, β = 0.1671 ***), and SN (H6, β = 0.1052 ***). The finding that EA has the strongest predictor of EI is consistent with the research of [126,130,131] but different from the results of [127,132], they respectively found that SN and ESE have the greatest influence. This could be interpreted if we consider the similarity between the concepts of EA and EI.…”

University Incubator Support and Entrepreneurial Intention among Tourism Graduates: Mediating Role of Personal Attitude

“…The same result was obtained by Vinothkumar and Subramanian [67] in their study, which has been applied to the military. Another study conducted by Yap et al [68] highlighted the importance of attitudes and assumed that it is the most influential factor in the intention of individuals, and they concluded that attitude is the main predictor of many behavioral intentions of individuals. In the same context, Tshikovhi and Shambare [69] demonstrated that personal behavior and entrepreneurial knowledge are the two important factors in motivating students in South Africa to act systematically toward entrepreneurial activities.…”