This study examined whether patterns of self-organization in physical activity (PA) predicted long-term success in a yearlong PA intervention. Increased moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) was targeted in insufficiently active adults (N = 512) via goal setting and financial reinforcement. The degree to which inverse power law distributions, which are reflective of self-organization, summarized (a) daily MVPA and (b) time elapsed between meeting daily goals (goal attainment interresponse times) was calculated. Goal attainment interresponse times were also used to calculate burstiness, the degree to which meeting daily goals clustered in time. Inverse power laws accurately summarized interresponse times, but not daily MVPA. For participants with higher levels of MVPA early in the study, burstiness in reaching goals was associated with long-term resistance to intervention, while stochasticity in meeting goals predicted receptiveness to intervention. These results suggest that burstiness may measure self-organizing resistance to change, while PA stochasticity could be a precondition for behavioral malleability.

这项研究检查了身体活动 (PA) 中的自组织模式是否能预测为期一年的 PA 干预的长期成功。增加中度至剧烈 PA (MVPA) 的目标是活动不足的成年人 ( N = 512）通过目标设定和财务强化。计算反映自组织的逆幂律分布的程度 (a) 每日 MVPA 和 (b) 实现每日目标（目标实现交互响应时间）之间经过的时间。目标实现交互响应时间也用于计算突发性，即满足日常目标的时间聚集程度。逆幂定律准确地总结了响应时间，但不是每日 MVPA。对于研究早期 MVPA 水平较高的参与者，实现目标的突然性与对干预的长期抵抗有关，而实现目标的随机性预测了对干预的接受程度。这些结果表明，突发性可以衡量自组织对变化的抵抗力，