Not just for your health alone: Regular exercisers’ decision-making in unrelated domains.

Abstract

Do regularly physically active individuals differ in their decision-making from people who are not regularly physically active? Across five studies, we document a novel benefit of being regularly physically active for decisions that require the appropriate weighing of goal-relevant versus goal-irrelevant information. Usually, when faced with a mix of relevant and irrelevant attribute information, decision makers find it difficult to ignore the irrelevant information, and as such, “dilute” their judgments (i.e., judgments become less extreme). Such a dilution effect has been amply documented in past research. In contrast, we find that people who engage in regular leisure physical activity are less susceptible to dilution effects. Beyond the dilution effect, we also find similar benefits of being regularly physically active for decisions involving desirability-feasibility trade-offs. The results hold across multiple replicates, diverse samples, and different measures of regular physical activity. We also rule out several potential alternative accounts (e.g., demographics, personality traits). The results cannot be explained by physical effort alone as these benefits are observed only for regular leisure physical activity and not for occupational physical activity.

Sweat it for sustainability: Impact of physical activity/exercise on sustainable consumption

“…Owing to the “immediate” beneficial effects of exercise on brain, moods, and cognitive and emotional behaviors of people, it is recommended as a strategic intervention to bolster positive consumer decision‐making through enhancing self‐efficacy (Ten Brummelhuis et al, 2021), as well as to curb seemingly undesirable consumption behaviors such as consumers' urge for impulse buying (Sultan et al, 2012). Literature supports the “affective, cognitive, and neurological benefits” (Zimmermann & Chakravarti, 2022, p. 2) of both immediate and regular physical activity/exercise on consumers' decision‐making and consumption behaviors. Table 1 summarizes the findings from extant studies that investigate the impact of physical activity/exercise on consumer behavior.…”

“…Our findings are limited to leisure physical activity. Zimmermann and Chakravarti (2022) state the results of exercise vary for leisure versus occupational physical activity, and this forms an interesting avenue for future research. Furthermore, future research should aim at investigating the impact of other forms of physical activity stimuli (such as dance/aerobics/strength activities), the intensity of the exercise as well as the time of engagement in the physical activity on consumers' emotional intelligence as well as their behaviors.…”

“…This position is grounded in executive function hypothesis, which is conceptualized as brain's ability toward “planning and carrying out action sequences that make up goal‐directed behavior and requires allocation of attention and memory, response selection and inhibition, goal setting, self‐control, self‐monitoring, and skillful and flexible use of strategies” (Davis et al, 2011, p. 91). Regular exercise is known to enhance positive affect over long term (Kerr & Kuk, 2001), increase self‐regulation (Muraven et al, 1999), reduce anxiety and stress (Long & Stavel, 1995), and reduce “dilution effect” (Zimmermann & Chakravarti, 2022). Regular exercise not only enhances mood as an immediate outcome of the session but also positively correlates with emotional intelligence as a trait, with people who exercise or indulge in physical activity frequently reporting higher scores on trait‐based emotional intelligence (Laborde et al, 2017; Solanki & Lane, 2010).…”

“…Our findings are limited to leisure physical activity Zimmermann and Chakravarti (2022). state the results of exercise vary for leisure versus occupational physical activity, and this forms an interesting avenue for future research.…”

“…Regular physical activity is also known to enhance self-efficacy and work focus of individuals (Ten Brummelhuis et al, 2021), and reduce the "dilution effect," such that the consumers focus only on the goal-relevant information, while discarding the goal-irrelevant information (Zimmermann & Chakravarti, 2022). Thus, engaging in both immediate as well as regular physical activity influences consumers' cognition and affective processes and their subsequent decision-making.…”