The influence of context stability on physical activity and sedentary behaviour habit and behaviour: An ecological momentary assessment study

Objectives This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to empirically test the theoretical propositions that habit for and level of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) should be associated with degree of context stability of those behaviours. Design Older adults (N = 104) completed a 10-day EMA protocol and continuous accelerometer monitoring. Methods As part of the EMA protocol older adults answered 6 EMA prompts per day to assess current behaviour as well as social and physical contexts of behaviour. Temporal context was determined via time stamps of EMA questionnaires. Context stability was calculated as the reversed entropy scores of the contexts (physical, social, temporal, behavioural [i.e., type]) of PA and SB weighted for total frequency of context prompts. Habit for PA and SB (operationalized as self-reported behavioural automaticity) was assessed via baseline questionnaire. An ActivPAL monitor was worn to assess average daily time spent in moderate-vigorous PA (MVPA), light PA, and SB, and number of sit-to-stand transitions. Results More stable physical contexts for physical activity predicted more MVPA (beta = 10.22) and more stable social contexts for sitting predicted more SB (beta = 1.36). More variety of time people tended to report engaging in SB, the more SB engaged in (beta = -13.76). No context stability scores predicted light PA, sit-to-stand transitions, or habit. Conclusions Although context stability was related to behaviour, this did not appear to be explained by habit, as habit did not differ by the degree of context stability surrounding bouts of PA or SB.