The effects of a brief time perspective intervention for increasing physical activity among young adults

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated that health behavior is correlated with time perspective: long-term thinkers are more likely than short-term thinkers to engage in health protective behaviors and less likely to engage in health damaging behaviors. To date, however, no research has experimentally demonstrated that time perspective is causally related to health behavior. We designed a brief (three 1/2-h weekly sessions) time perspective intervention to enhance long-term thinking about physical activity and examined its efficacy among two samples of young adults who signed up for fitness classes at a university recreational facility. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: time perspective intervention, goal-setting control intervention, and no-treatment control. In Study 1, physical activity levels were assessed at preintervention, at postintervention (3 weeks later), and at 10-week follow-up (7 weeks after completion of the intervention). Controlling for preintervention physical activity levels, time perspective participants reported increased levels of physical activity relative to both other groups at postintervention, and relative to the no-treatment group at 10-week follow-up. This study provides the first experimental evidence that the effects of health behavior interventions may be enhanced by increasing participants’ long-term time perspective, and that time perspective is causally associated with health behavior. Study 2 replicated some of the effects of Study 1 using a larger sample, a six-month follow-up interval, and improved measurement of outcome. Together Studies 1 and 2 suggest that time perspective is an important ingredient in interventions designed to promote physical activity.

Keywords:

• Physical activity
• Time perspective
• Health behavior
• Health promotion

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation, National Cancer Institute of Canada, and by a graduate fellowship from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first author. Portions of this research were presented at the August 2000 meeting of the American Psychological Association.

We thank Emilia Hwang, Carrie Lynn Choy, Tara Elton and Anna Magolon for their assistance. We also thank Rebecca White and the aerobics instructors at the Department of Athletics, University of Waterloo, for their support.

Finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Lawrence Brawley for his invaluable assistance with study design and implimentation.

Notes

†E-mail: [email protected]

¹Details about the Time Perspective and Goal-Setting Interventions can be obtained from the authors.

²We elected to conduct two repeated measures 3 (group) × 2 (time) ANOVAs rather than a single 3 (group) × 3 (time) ANOVA. Given that the experimental hypothesis is that larger initial changes would occur in one group relative to the others and that these changes would be maintained over time, any support for this hypothesis should compare the differences between pre- and postintervention or preintervention and follow-up. Creating an omnibus factor for time spanning across all three measurement periods would obscure any significant treatment effects if they were maintained over time. That is, if the time perspective group were to show large initial increases in physical activity from pre- to postintervention and maintain these changes to follow-up, the effect of time would be dampened down by the uniformity of the dependent measure for this group from postintervention to follow-up. Thus, when tracking maintenance of intervention effects over several postintervention time points, we feel that separate repeated measures analyses are more appropriate than an omnibus analysis.

³Because we conducted planned comparisons, all tests reported are one-tailed.

ⁱcontrast between TP condition and NT condition is significant at p < 0.05;

ⁱⁱcontrast between TP condition and NT condition is significant at p < 0.005;

ⁱⁱⁱcontrast between TP condition and GS condition is significant at p<0.05.

ⁱcontrast between TP condition and NT condition is significant at p < 0.05.

ⁱⁱⁱcontrast between TP condition and GS condition significant at p < 0.05.

ⁱⁱcontrast between TP condition and NT condition significant at p < 0.005.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geoffrey T. Fong†

†E-mail: [email protected]