Why people should run after positive affective experiences instead of health benefits

Abstract

1. •

   Promoting health benefits is necessary but insufficient to foster sustained engagement in physical activity (PA).

2. •

   Our formal decision-making model explains why health benefits hold a weak subjective value.

3. •

   In this model, expected health benefits are jointly discounted by effort-discounting, delay-discounting, and beliefs distortion.

4. •

   In contrast, positive affective experiences toward PA can reduce the perception of effort, provide more immediate consequences, and strengthen beliefs about health benefits.

5. •

   Because affective experiences have the potential to tip the balance in favor of PA over sedentary alternatives, they should be at the core of PA promotion.

Fig. 1

Illustration of the decision model between PA and SED. This figure highlights that when health benefits are the unique reason to action, the costs of PA and the subjective value assigned to sedentary alternatives (V_sed) are the main drivers of decision-making processes. In contrast, the subjective value assigned to health benefits is likely having little effect on decision-making processes, as it is conditional to multiple parameters (i.e., value assigned to good health (V_d⁺), bad health (V_d⁻), risk of being in bad health (p_risk) and benefits of PA (p_benefit) in a delayed future (d)). However, when considering positive affects as an additional reason for action (V_affects), the balance between PA and SED is likely reweighted. PA = physical activity; SED = sedentary alternatives.