Motivation 2b Active

Study indicates automated calls motivate adults to be active.

According to Health Psychology, "automated exercise reminder phone calls" to sedentary people "had about the same get-up-and-go power as calls from human counselors." Lead author Abby King, a senior investigator at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and colleagues, recruited "218 adults over 55 in the San Francisco Bay area" to participate in the study called Community Health Advice by Telephone, or CHAT.

CHAT aimed to encourage participants to walk "at a brisk pace for 30 minutes most days, or engage in some other medium-intense activity, for a total of about 150 minutes a week." A year later, the researchers found that participants "who got computer calls averaged 157 minutes, while human-called participants logged an average 178 minutes."

The research team concluded that "alternative ways can be used to encourage inactive people to become more physically active."