An exploration of the associations between hypomanic traits, motives and exercise in the context of self-determination theory

Abstract

Objective: The current study aimed to explore associations between hypomanic personality traits, over-ambitious life goals, exercise motives, behavioural regulation and exercise behaviour. It was hypothesised that hypomanic traits would be significantly associated with setting more overly-ambitious life goals and extrinsic motives for exercise; these were derived from the theoretical perspectives of Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and research into goal dysregulation in Bipolar Disorders (Johnson, 2005). Method: A sample of 165 undergraduate students (83% female [n = 133]; age, M = 19.3 years old, SD = 0.4, range 18-40) was recruited from the University of Exeter to take part in this longitudinal study. Participants completed a selection of self-report questionnaires measuring variables including hypomanic personality traits, over-ambitious goal setting, motives for exercise, behavioural regulation and exercise behaviour via an online survey. Exercise behaviour was then captured a week later in a follow-up survey. Results: Mediation analyses revealed an indirect effect of hypomanic traits on exercise motives via overly-ambitious goal setting. No significant relationships were found between hypomanic traits and exercise behaviour itself and further mediation analyses revealed no effect of exercise motives on exercise behaviour through behavioural regulations. Conclusions: Findings from this study provided mixed support for the proposed hypotheses; despite no significant associations between hypomanic traits and exercise behaviour itself, hypomanic traits appear to make a unique contribution to exercise motives, via over-ambitious goal setting. Therefore, they may play a role in the motivational processes that have consistently shown to be associated with exercise engagement and adherence (Ingledew & Markland, 2008, Teixeira et al., 2012). Exploring these variables within a clinical population may be a useful next step in further understanding these motivational processes.