The development of a physical activity persona classification for public education campaigns

Historically, physical activity (PA) promotion campaigns have been evaluated with social cognitive approaches that are limited in explaining the PA intention–behavior gap and distinguishing between behavioral adoption and maintenance. The purpose of this research was to develop and test a simple classification that addresses PA intention–behavior translation and maintenance, using action control and dual-process theories with 4 items (PA intentions, behavior, habit, and identity). 

A classification was developed on one population (n = 1350) and tested on 2 PA campaign populations (n = 376 and n = 6396). The a priori criterion for success was for the resultant profiles to each account for ≥10% of the sample and collectively account for ≥85% of the sample.

The initial classification produced 4 profiles: (1) “nonintenders” (ie, low intentions, low PA, low habit, and low identity); (2) “unsuccessful adopters” (ie, high intentions, low PA, low habit, and low identity); (3) “successful adopters” (ie, high intentions, high PA, low habit, and low identity); and (4) “successful maintainers” (ie, high intentions, high PA, and high habit, or high identity); which collectively accounted for 87.6% of the sample. The 2 test samples revealed 2 profiles (“successful adopters” and “successful maintainers”) that accounted for 69.8% and 70.9% of the samples, respectively.

The classification produced 4 profiles; however, only 2 profiles were revealed in the test samples. These differences may have been the result of the PA campaign populations being more inclined toward translating intentions and maintaining behavior. Future research should assess profile distributions across diverse campaign audiences.