Prof. Köhler was part of a new publication in the journal PLoS ONE led by Dr. Maital Neta from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA). The publication addressed the question whether people who are physically more active are more “positive” – that is, do they interpret situations which are emotionally ambiguous (i.e. could be seen as positive or negative such as a surprised faced) more positively than individuals who are less active?
While it is well established that physical activity has a positive effect on emotional and mental health, no one had previously tested whether this positive effect also applies to emotional ambiguity. The study was conducted online and included 611 adults, who were shown a serious of images that could were clearly positive (e.g. a smile or a puppy), clearly negative (e.g. an angry face or food with mold on it) or ambiguous images which could be interpreted either as positive or negative, such as a surprised face or french fries. At the end of the question, we asked people how much and what type of physical activity and exercise they conduced within the last week.
The most important finding was that people who conducted some vigorous physical activity, even in very small amounts such as 1 day a week, were more likely to interpret ambiguous images positively than people who were completely sedentary. Our results show that even small doses of physical activity seem to be sufficient to allow people to see things more “positively”. The next step would be to test whether this effect also holds true when people become more active, for example by starting an exercise program.
For more information, you will find the full-text here