What messages do adults prefer? Understanding adults’ perceptions of intrinsic and extrinsic physical activity messages.

Physical activity messages serve as a potential mechanism to facilitate physical activity engagement in a resource-friendly manner that can complement other behavior change methods. The purpose of this study was to examine adults’ perception of the persuasiveness and preferences for physical activity messages framed intrinsically or extrinsically and tailored to the stages of change within the Comprehensive Messaging Strategy for Sustained Behavior Change. The second purpose of this study was to determine if participants of different motivation orientations and genders differed in their perceptions and preferences of messages. Participants included 266 adults ranging from 18 to 65 (Mage = 28.97; SD = 12.38) years of age, who completed an online survey. Intrinsically framed messages were perceived as more persuasive and ranked more favorably than extrinsic messages. Women, and individuals with motivation profiles of higher autonomous motives preferred and perceived the intrinsic messages to be more persuasive than their counterparts, while those with higher controlled motives evaluated the extrinsic messages to be more persuasive and preferred than those with lower controlling motives. This research offers valuable insight to researchers and program designers as it highlights how to frame messages to elicit more favorable cognitive appraisals, which may have important implications for subsequent cognitions, affect, and behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all ri...
Source: Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research