Moderators of the intention-behaviour and perceived behavioural control-behaviour relationships for leisure-time physical activity.

Research Group on Behaviour in the Field of Health, Laval University, Québec (Québec), Canada. Gaston.Godin@fsi.ulaval.ca.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Intention is a key determinant of action. However, there is a gap between intention and behavioural performance that remains to be explained. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify moderators of the intention-behaviour and perceived behavioural control (PBC)- behaviour relationships for leisure-time physical activity. METHOD: This was tested in reference to Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour. A sample of 300 volunteers, 192 women and 108 men, aged 18 to 55, participated in the study. At baseline, the participants completed a self-administrated psychosocial questionnaire assessing Ajzen's theory variables (i.e., intention and perceived behavioural control). The behavioural measure was obtained by mail three months later. RESULTS: Multiple hierarchical regression analyses indicated that age and annual income moderated the intention-behaviour and PBC-behaviour relationships. However, in the final model predicting behaviour (R2 = .46), only the interaction term of PBC by annual income (beta = .24, p = 0.0003) significantly contributed to the prediction of behaviour along with intention (beta = .49, p = 0.0009) and past behaviour (beta = .44, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Physical activity promotion programs would benefit not only from focusing on increasing the intention of low intenders, but also from targeting factors that moderate the perceived behavioural control-behaviour relationships.

PMID: 18241339 [PubMed - in process]

PMCID: PMC2275296