Cancer prevention as a source of exercise motivation: An experimental test using protection motivation theory

The present study examined whether cancer prevention is a meaningful source of exercise motivation using Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). Participants were 427 undergraduate students randomly assigned to read one of 16 persuasive communications that independently manipulated perceived vulnerability (PV), perceived severity (PS), response efficacy (RE) and self-efficacy (SE). A factorial ANOVA indicated a significant main effect for PS and a significant interaction between PS and RE. The interaction was such that individuals who were led to believe that colon cancer was a severe disease (high PS) were more motivated to exercise if they also believed that exercise was effective (high RE) as opposed to ineffective (low RE) in reducing their risk of colon cancer. Conversely, individuals led to believe that colon cancer was not a very severe disease (low PS) were not differentially motivated to exercise based on their RE beliefs. It was concluded that cancer prevention may be a meaningful source of exercise motivation but that further research is required to determine the replicability and generalizability of these results.