Discussion
automaticity, conscious incompetence, weight loss
INCOMPETENCE, SECONDARY, STILL
This NoHoW-based study sought to determine if a path analytical model resulting from self-determination theory and self-regulation could explain body weight change for 12 months.According to our main results, a quarter of the weight change variance (Our findings extended previous studies with the Self-Determination Theory health behavior change model [Focusing on the climate care results, although the bivariate correlations suggested several potential paths of influence in line with the logic model, the main analysis signaled that only the paths involving action plans, coping plans, and action control are significant. Looking at the logic model from right to left (i.e., outcomes to antecedents), one can hypothesize that these paths represent more robust mechanisms by sitting closer to the actual behaviors that lead to changes in weight. The self-regulatory variables also encompass the operationalization of eating and exercise autonomous regulations. More internalized regulations – the wantivation—are expected to provide the psychosocial stability to create and sustain adequate action plans and coping plans while feeling in control of one’s actions [Still concerning the supportive climate care data, a new, unexpected, path is suggested: exercise-controlled regulations represented a beneficial mechanism by which needs satisfaction influenced weight regain prevention efforts. We offer a similar explanation to the one presented above; self-regulatory processes are expected to benefit from a stable psychosocial context provided by internalized eating and exercise regulations. The unexpected exercise-controlled regulation results should be contextualized in the light of a new fact; participants used a FitBit tracker daily and averaged 10,600 steps at 12 months, attaining public health physical activity guidelines [The goal content-related paths of the logic model presented an extra layer of information to this discussion. The intrinsic goal content model showed that increases in action plans and action control and decreases in exercise controlled-motivation predicted better weight regain prevention outcomes (i.e., wantivation). On the other hand, the extrinsic goal content model showed that increases in the significant indirect effects was associated with worse weight outcomes (i.e., mustivation). In this instance, we observed that increases in exercise-controlled motivation, alongside increases in action plans, coping plans, and action control led to increases in weight. The underlying mechanisms explaining these results may be that the introjected regulation's approach component is beneficial only when intrinsic goal content increases. In this scenario, action plans and action control align with the participant’s internalized motives. Conversely, when extrinsic motives increase, we expect that participants used external and avoidance-introjected regulations. This means that the action plans, coping plans, and action control would be instrumentalized by focusing on external and controlling outcomes (i.e., mustivation). This situation is not sustainable long-term, leading to worse weight prevention regain outcomes [The secondary analysis (i.e., outcome-related groups) presented an interesting pattern. We observed increasing importance of the mechanisms of action from the group that lost weight (where only one path was significant) to the group that maintained weight (three significant paths) and to the regainers group (six significant paths). These findings suggest that when losing weight, the behavior change processes become automatic, habitual, and less conscious, and thus not captured via the self-reported questionnaires used in our measures of motivational and self-regulatory processes, which tap more conscious processes.Maintaining weight seems to demand more conscious efforts, specifically while changing eating-related variables, which emerged as significant in the maintainer’s findings for the first time. As these processes are more conscious, the self-reported questionnaires captured these changes. Eating changes are commonly regarded as providing swifter changes in weight [Finally, the regainers’ findings reflect the larger number of significant psychosocial processes as they struggle to manage their weight. Again, the results are aligned with the paper’s rationale: intrinsic nurturing antecedents lead to weight loss (i.e., wantivation), while extrinsic antecedents lead to weight regain (i.e., mustivation). The co-existence of significant weight loss and weight regain mechanisms in the participants who regained weight may reflect situations of weight cycling [The success group findings present a unique opportunity to reflect and generate hypotheses on the underlying learning mechanisms leading to behavior maintenance. The rationale supporting these hypotheses can be summarized by: 1) the sentence “from conscious incompetence to sub-conscious competence” [Accordingly, we suggest two hypotheses for future studies.First, that automaticity or habit mechanisms – less conscious—are taking over the weight management behaviors of the most successful groups.This could explain the smaller number of significant, conscious, motivational, and self-regulatory mechanisms of action captured by the questionnaires in participants who successfuly lost or maintained weight (system 1 / the elephant relies on the newly learned habits). On the other hand, participants who regained weight present a higher number of significant conscious processes as they are still struggling to regulate their weight management behaviors (system 2 / the rider is looking for solutions). As a corollary, participants who regained weight are in the state of conscious incompetence, while successful participants are in the state of sub-conscious competence.Second, that the internalization process of automaticity and habit formation is linked with autonomous motivational mechanisms in the sense that the autonomous motivational mechanisms provide energy to push and translate the conscious content to the sub-conscious. As such, the autonomous motivational mechanisms would be a path and a language that links system 2 / the rider to system 1 / the elephant. The studies on flow states, where “being in the zone” is linked to automaticity and habit processes, show that these states are linked to the highest levels of intrinsic motivation [