Date of Award

2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Kinesiology

Department

Kinesiology

First Advisor

Mark Hartman

Abstract

Exercise is a feasible way to reduce all-cause mortality, yet participation rates are paradoxically low. A growing trend of exercise classes in the dark has been anecdotally reported as a way to increase exercise participation by removing the element of comparison. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ambient light intensity on the subjective exercise experience. Specifically, the effect of ambient light levels on social physique anxiety and affective responses was measured during group cycling exercise in two different lighting conditions. It was hypothesized that social physique anxiety (SPA) would be lower when group cycling exercising in the dark compared to standard room lighting. The secondary hypothesis was that introverts would report higher pleasure exercising in the dark compared to extroverts. Five participants performed 20 minutes of self-paced cycling exercise on a stationary bike as a group in a standard room lighting condition (~180 Lux) and a darkness condition (~0 lux). State SPA, affective valence, and arousal were measured before and after the cycling exercises. There were no significant effects of lighting condition on any of the outcome variables. Extraversion had a negative correlation with the light condition and positive correlation with the dark condition, although both of these were nonsignificant. All five participants reported preferring the darkness exercise than the standard light exercise. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the phenomenon of exercising in the dark on social physique anxiety.

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