Implementation intentions improve exercise self-efficacy and exercise behavior regardless of task difficulty

Previous scholars have demonstrated that implementation intentions have positive effects on exercise self-efficacy and exercise behaviors; however, others have found little evidence to support these results. Task difficulty has been deemed a key factor that may contribute to these discrepant findings. Therefore, we examined the effects of implementation intentions on exercise self-efficacy and exercise behavior under different task difficulty conditions. High school students (N = 90; 48 young women and 42 young men) were randomly assigned to 3 groups to receive different kinds of intervention (i.e., control group, goal intentions group, and implementation intentions group) and then were asked to hold the Navasana yoga posture under either high-difficulty or low-difficulty conditions. The results lend support to the assumption that implementation intentions help improve exercise self-efficacy and exercise behavior among high school students. The effects of implementation intentions were robust and independent of task difficulty.