If the idea of stepping on a treadmill doesn’t fill you joy, Dr. Suzanne Pottratz has a solution. The Assistant Professor of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, in Barry’s Sport & Exercise Sciences department, has just published the promising results of two groundbreaking studies that tracked the effects of subliminal messaging on workout enjoyment. The conclusion? Motivational messages perceived subconsciously may make exercise seem more pleasurable and less physically intense.
The study results, “Prime Movers: Effects of Subliminal Primes, Music, and Music Video on Psychological Responses to Exercise,” were published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine inJune and are among the first to track the effects of subliminal cues, or primes, on exercise enjoyment.
Pottratz conducted her research with the help of volunteer participants in two distinct groups: young, active women and middle-aged, sedentary adults. Under controlled experimental conditions, each group watched music videos with and without embedded primes while exercising. To determine which music videos to incorporate into her study, Pottratz referred to the Brunel Music Rating Inventory-2, which assesses the motivational qualities of music in an exercise context. She selected both “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida and “I Can Only Imagine” by David Guetta feat. Chris Brown and Lil Wayne. She also chose to embed the positive subliminal text primes “happy,” “pleased,” and “joyful.”
While briskly walking on a treadmill, participants watched the music videos, unaware of which ones contained subliminal primes, and were periodically asked to rate themselves on two questions: “How do you feel right now?” and “How hard do you feel like you’re working?” Overall, both participant groups reported greater enjoyment and lower rates of perceived exertion when they exercised while watching the music videos containing the subliminal primes. Additionally, participants recalled their workouts with videos that included primes as more enjoyable than their workouts with unaltered music videos.
“I’m most excited about the implications of our findings that priming can help to create a more enjoyable exercise experience,” says Pottratz. “Many people who are inactive or sedentary don’t participate in exercise because they don’t enjoy it. So, if implementing this technique can increase positive feelings during exercise, we may be able to help more people get and stay active.” Sticking to exercise is difficult for many, and Pottratz has devoted her research career to exploring techniques that work. She began investigating the possibility of incorporating subliminal primes into exercise during her doctoral studies at Springfield College. In fact, her dissertation advisor, Dr. Jasmin Hutchinson, collaborated with her on the study, as did her former professor Dr. Costas Karageorghis, of Brunel University London, where Pottratz earned her master’s degree. “Together, the three of us came up with the idea for this study to better understand the psychological responses to the use of subliminal priming within music videos during exercise,” says Pottratz.
Nearly four years after she and her colleagues began working on the study, Pottratz is grateful to see the results published, even as she conceives of new ways to move her work forward. “I plan to continue this line of research by studying different uses and modalities in which priming can be utilized in both exercise and sport contexts.” With Pottratz on the case, even the exercise averse among us may soon be slipping on their walking shoes with a smile.