Uncovering the roles of automatic attitudes and controlled processes in the regulation of physical activity behavior in children

Despite substantial research efforts to increase engagement in physical activity (PA), children are not sufficiently active. Dual-process theories suggest that PA behavior regulation occurs through both controlled (i.e., reflective, conscious) and automatic (i.e., non-reflective, less conscious) processes. Automatic processes depend on affective valuations and attitudes towards PA and have been shown to predict PA behavior. However, their role in PA behavior regulation in children remains unclear. Therefore, the current study investigated the unique association of automatic attitudes towards PA on self-reported seven-day PA recall, after accounting for the effects of known controlled precursors of PA (i.e., explicit attitudes, PA self-efficacy, and PA intentions). In a cross-sectional design, 69 children (age = 10.8 ± 0.6 years) completed the Single-Category Implicit Association Task (SC-IAT) and self-reported measures of PA and controlled precursors of PA. In a hierarchical regression analysis, controlled processes accounted for 28.3% of the variance in PA behavior. Although the bivariate association between automatic attitudes and PA was not significant, the association between them became significant but negative in the fully adjusted model (b = -1.70; p = 0.025). The fully adjusted model accounted for 35.0% of the variance in PA. In summary, the findings indicated that both controlled and automatic processes predicted PA in children, although the association with automatic attitudes was not in the expected direction in the adjusted model. Future studies are warranted to further understand the role of automatic processes in the regulation of PA behavior in children.