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The present study examined Solomon's opponent-process theory of acquired motivation in aerobically active (N = 28) and inactive (N = 25) participants. Affect was assessed pre, during, and following two individualized exercise conditions. Several hypotheses were examined. The results generally failed to lend support to Solomon's theory. Active participants' positive affect responses across both conditions were elevated compared to baseline during and following exercise. Inactive participants' positive affect responses across both conditions were slightly elevated compared to baseline. Results collapsed across participant groups demonstrated that both groups reported increased positive affect during and following the 55% exercise condition. In the 70% condition, positive affect rose slightly during exercise and increased following exercise. Results are discussed as supporting a maintenance model of affect responding.
Research by Thayer, Newman, and McClain (1994) suggests that acute exercise is a highly effective mood-regulating strategy when compared to other common strategies such as passive stimulation (e.g., drinking coffee), and reductions in activity (e.g., watching TV). In addition, acute bouts of aerobic exercise are typically associated with reductions in anxiety and increases in positive mood (Landers & Arent 2001). Hence, it is surprising; in view of this finding and that no one theoretical framework has emerged to consistently explain affective change in response to acute exercise (Landers & Arent, 2001). Several exercise psychology researchers have stated that this lack of a theoretical framework is a result of two phenomenons that have permeated over the last twenty to thirty years of exercise psychology research (Ekkekakis & Petruzzello, 1999; McCann & Holmes, 1984;Tuson & Sinyor, 1993).
The first of these phenomenons was the fact that the major impetus in examining the exercise-affect relationships was to explain the often reported "feel-good" effect reported in the popular press (Tuson & Sinyor, 1993). The second impetus in exercise psychology and affect research was to examine whether exercise could be used as a therapeutic devise in treating affective disorders (McCann & Holmes, 1984). This desire to verify the "feel-good" phenomenon and to examine the viability of exercise as an affective therapy required only descriptive based investigations as opposed to theory based examinations. Likewise, Ekkekakis and Petruzzello (1999) in a review of dose-response exercise and affective investigations also concluded that most of these investigations were descriptive in...