Is sitting invisible? Exploring how people mentally represent sitting.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Growing evidence suggests that prolonged uninterrupted sitting can be detrimental to health. Much sedentary behaviour research is reliant on self-reports of sitting time, and sitting-reduction interventions often focus on reducing motivation to sit. These approaches assume that people are consciously aware of their sitting time. Drawing on Action Identification Theory, this paper argues that people rarely identify the act of sitting as 'sitting' per se, and instead view it as an incidental component of more meaningful and purposeful typically-seated activities.

Methods

Studies 1 and 2 explored whether people mentioned sitting in written descriptions of actions. Studies 3-5 compared preferences for labelling a typically desk-based activity as 'sitting' versus alter

SUBMITTER: Gardner B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6790031 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature