eMOTION: Examining Implicit Attitudes in Physical Activity Engagement
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot listed
Trial typeObservational
Biological sexAll
Age18+
SponsorUniversity of Southern California
About this trial
This early-phase trial will test intervention strategies to influence implicit attitudes towards physical activity and determine whether changes in those mechanisms result in change in physical activity behavior among inactive adults who are overweight or obese.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
Aged ≥ 18 years
Reside in the United States
Self-reported BMI ≥ 25
Current structured physical activity engagement < 60 minutes per week
Disqualifiers
Inability to provide informed consent due to cognitive disability
Inability to engage in one or more key treatment components, including those with medical conditions that preclude physical activity engagement or who cannot wear an accelerometer on the wrist or answer brief surveys on the smartwatch for any reason
Current pregnancy
Referred to the study by another participant or from Reddit.
Trial population
Physically inactive adults with overweight or obesity who are living in the U.S.,
Trial design
Design model
Cohort
Time perspective
Prospective
Treatments tested in this trial
Physical Activity Goals mHealth Intervention
BehavioralOn days participants plan to exercise, they engage in two daily goal sessions (morning and evening). Morning sessions provide an activity goal for the day and ask the participant to create a plan, anticipate barriers, and brainstorm solutions for achieving this goal. The affect-based goal condition asks participants to engage in either (1) a type (50% of daily goals) or (2) a context (50% of daily goals) of physical activity that allows them to experience positive affect. Goals focused on context are randomly generated to suggest that the participant performs activity (1) in a place; (2) in a social situation; or (3) while listening to something that makes them feel good. The intensity-based goal condition asks participants to maintain a certain target heart rate range during physical activity. Starting heart rate reflects the approximate age-adjusted heart rate max, with goals progressively increasing from 55% to 70% heart rate max.
TYPE/CONTEXT enhancement
BehavioralTYPE/CONTEXT augments intervention effects by providing tailored recommendations for activity types and contexts that satisfy personally-important psychological needs as rated by each participant at baseline. Ratings from a crowdsourced panel of adults on Amazon Mechanical Turk will be used to determine the potential for specific activity types and contexts to satisfy psychological needs; our tailoring algorithm will then recommend the corresponding activity type or context while accounting for reported constraints (e.g., ability, access). These details will be incorporated into a tailored recommendation provided to participants each Sunday as they make activity plans for the upcoming week. Specifically, the program will randomly select either type or context (i.e., location, audio, social) recommendations and will rotate every two weeks. For TYPE, participants' top 3 activity types are recommended; for CONTEXT, participants' top 3 activity contexts are recommended.
SAVOR enhancement
BehavioralSAVOR implements a brief savoring exercise on the smartphone that takes place either after the planned physical activity session or during the evening goal session (after the self-monitoring module). Participants will respond to questions that are intended to enhance and prolong positive experiences during physical activity. To trigger attentional deployment, a common savoring strategy that involves intensifying experiences by focusing on them, participants will answer three open-ended prompts. These prompts are drawn from a prompt pool with slightly varied wording to promote a sense of novelty. Savoring prompts will rotate daily and have a day lag built in every week (i.e., Week 1 Monday Savoring Prompts are Week 2 Tuesday Savoring Prompts).
Treatment groups
120 Participants
are divided into 8 treatment groups8
Treatment groupsSee each treatment group below.
Group A: Affect (no enhancements) > Intensity1 intervention
Group B: Intensity > Affect (no enhancements)1 intervention
Group C: Affect (+ SAVOR + TYPE/CONTEXT) > Intensity3 interventions
Group D: Intensity > Affect (+ SAVOR + TYPE/CONTEXT)3 interventions
Group E: Affect (+SAVOR) > Intensity2 interventions
Group F: Intensity > Affect (+SAVOR)2 interventions
Group G: Affect (+TYPE/CONTEXT) > Intensity2 interventions
Group H: Intensity > Affect (+TYPE/CONTEXT)2 interventions
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Implicit Attitudes
The single-category Implicit Association Test (IAT) will ask participants to match to a conceptual target such as sedentary behavior (e.g., sitting, lying) or physical activity (e.g., walking, running) to affective attributes (e.g., good/bad).If the participant has a strong automatic association between the attribute and conceptual target, then the reaction time will be shorter (representing a favorable implicit attitude). A real-time audibly prompted IAT will be triggered on participants' smartphones in the morning on days a physical activity session is planned (with four reminders sent once every hour if incomplete).
Time frame
Up to once daily for weeks 2-9 and weeks 12-19Sponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
University of Southern California
Lead sponsor
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Collaborator
Source ClinicalTrials.gov