Self-Schemata and Exercise
Kendzierski's study is an early demonstration that how people categorise themselves predicts what they do. She sorted participants into three groups by whether being an exerciser was part of their self-concept: those who saw themselves as exercisers, those who saw themselves as non-exercisers, and those for whom the category was not relevant either way. Exerciser schematics exercised more often and did more kinds of activity, were more likely to have exercised in the previous term, were more interested in and committed to exercising in future, had made more plans to help themselves do it regularly, and had somewhat more tricks for getting themselves out of the door on days they did not feel like it. That last item is the interesting one, since it suggests identity operates partly by making people prepare for their own reluctance. The design is correlational and self-reported. This vault cites it as the origin of the exercise-identity literature that later meta-analysis has extended.
Kendzierski's study is an early demonstration that how people categorise themselves predicts what they do. She sorted participants into three groups by whether being an exerciser was part of their self-concept: those who saw themselves as exercisers, those who saw themselves as non-exercisers, and those for whom the category was not relevant either way. Exerciser schematics exercised more often and did more kinds of activity, were more likely to have exercised in the previous term, were more interested in and committed to exercising in future, had made more plans to help themselves do it regularly, and had somewhat more tricks for getting themselves out of the door on days they did not feel like it. That last item is the interesting one, since it suggests identity operates partly by making people prepare for their own reluctance. The design is correlational and self-reported. This vault cites it as the origin of the exercise-identity literature that later meta-analysis has extended.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Kendzierski, D. (1988). "Self-schemata and exercise." Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 9(1), 45-59.
Where we use it
- Somebody Notices When You Are Missing, Why We Move
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp0901_4
DOI: 10.1207/s15324834basp0901_4