Not just for your health alone:regular exercisers’ decision-making in unrelated domains

Do regularly physically active individuals differ in their decision-making from people who are not regularly physically active? Across five studies, we document a novel benefit of being regularly physically active fordecisions that require the appropriate weighing of goal-relevant versus goal-irrelevant information. Usually,when faced with a mix of relevant and irrelevant attribute information, decision makers find it difficult toignore the irrelevant information, and as such, “dilute” their judgments (i.e., judgments become lessextreme). Such a dilution effect has been amply documented in past research. In contrast, we find that peoplewho engage in regular leisure physical activity are less susceptible to dilution effects. Beyond the dilutioneffect, we also find similar benefits of being regularly physically active for decisions involving desirabilityfeasibilitytrade-offs. The results hold across multiple replicates, diverse samples, and different measures ofregular physical activity. We also rule out several potential alternative accounts (e.g., demographics,personality traits). The results cannot be explained by physical effort alone as these benefits are observedonly for regular leisure physical activity and not for occupational physical activity