1. RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2012
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• Multiple behaviours contribute to mortality and morbidity, yet we know little about
how common health cognitions orchestrate combinations of health-related activity.
• Physical exercise and healthy nutrition behaviours are often positively related – how
do they facilitate each other?
• Potential key mechanisms:
– Self-regulation: cognitive, emotional and behavioural resources are needed for
organization of all health behaviour, but they can be depleted quickly.
– Habit strength: once behaviour becomes more automatic, self-regulatory resources are
more plentiful, and can be applied to health action in other domains.
– Transfer cognitions: knowledge or skills acquired in one context can assist future
learning in other, associated contexts, though activation of cognitive strategies.
BACKGROUND
STUDY AIMS & DESIGN
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
• Individuals who engage in regular, habitual health behaviour (e.g.
exercise) have spare self-regulatory resources to carry out other tasks
(e.g. adhering to a nutritious diet).
• More exercise-related cognitions increase likelihood of cognitive transfer,
which facilitates healthy eating.
• The study introduced a new scale (TRACS) to measure transfer
cognitions, and a promising new framework for psychosocial explanation
of cross-behaviour regulation.
• Implicates that health behaviour change interventions may therefore
benefit from targeting transfer constructs.
Limitations: Sequential order unclear; small effect size; intervention participants
Future research: Role of motivation/self-efficacy in transfer;
Potential of cross-behaviour action plans;
Translation across behaviours and populations
Purpose:
1) Explicitly measure
transfer cognitions
2) Contextualise self-
regulation via habit
strength
Isabelle Kelly, University of Nottingham
Fleig, L., Kerschreiter, R., Schwarzer, R., Pomp, S. & Lippke, S. (2014)
‘Sticking to a healthy diet is easier for me when I exercise regularly’:
Cognitive transfer between physical exercise and heathy nutrition
Habit strength
Physical
exercise
Self-regulatory
resources
Cross-
behaviour
regulation Transfer
cognitions
Healthy
nutrition
Proposed theoretical framework
T1 T2
• Physical exercise
no. of sessions p/w *
minutes p/session
(Godin & Shephard, 1985; Plotnikoff
et al., 2007)
• Exercise habit strength (Verplanken & Orbell, 2003)
‘Being physically active…
…is something I do automatically.’
• Healthy nutrition (Rafferty et al., 2002)
‘I had fruits and/or vegetables with every meal.’
‘I tried to avoid sweetened beverages.’
• Transfer cognitions
‘When I exercise regularly…
…it is easier for me to eat healthily.’
Final sample:
Rehabilitation patients
N = 470
Age M = 50.46 (SD = 9.07)
T1:T2 = 6 months
Measures:
Habit
strength
Transfer
cognitions
Healthy
nutrition
Control
variables
.36**
.15**
.44**
-.01 (.14*)
.10*
.27**
ns
R2 = .21
Note:
* = p<.05
** = p<.01
Analysis: Multi-step mediation modelling.
• Exercise (T1) was significantly
associated with habit strength
and transfer cognitions (T2).
• The exercise-nutrition
relationship was not significant
when these variables were
controlled for.
• Model accounted for 21%
variance in healthy nutrition.
BMI; sex; condition
Fleig, L., Kerschreiter, R., Schwarzer, R., Pomp, S., & Lippke, S. (2014). ‘Sticking to a healthy diet is easier for me when I
exercise regularly’: Cognitive transfer between physical exercise and healthy nutrition. Psychology & health,29(12).