Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Kate Flory
Abstract
Emotion dysregulation is a common issue among college students with ADHD, and emotion dysregulation in adults with ADHD is associated with many negative outcomes including higher levels of psychological distress and social impairment, poorer functioning at school and work, greater symptoms of anxiety and depression, and lower quality of life. Past work suggests that physical exercise can be useful in treating core ADHD symptoms for children and adolescents with ADHD, but less is known about its effects for young adults with ADHD. Exercise has been shown to be effective in targeting emotion dysregulation among the general adult population. Some work has shown beneficial effects of exercise on cognitive functioning, internalizing symptoms, and core ADHD symptoms in college students with ADHD, but no work to our knowledge has investigated the effects of exercise on emotion dysregulation in college students with ADHD. The current study aimed to address this gap by testing the acute effects of physical exercise on emotion regulation among emerging adult postsecondary students with and without ADHD. We hypothesized that physical exercise would have a beneficial effect on emotion dysregulation for all participants compared to the non-exercise condition, but that the effect will be larger among participants with ADHD. Findings showed that the main effect of group was not significant, but there was a small effect size. Participants with ADHD reported more emotion dysregulation than participants without ADHD. The main effect of condition on emotion dysregulation was not significant, but there was a small effect. Participants reported lower levels of emotion dysregulation after exercise than non-exercise. The group x condition interaction effect was not significant, but there was a small effect such that participants without ADHD showed more improvement in emotion dysregulation following exercise than did participants with ADHD. Although the findings did not reach significance, the effect sizes show partial support for the hypotheses. Future work with a larger sample may be more adequately powered for detecting statistically significant results.
Rights
© 2025, Elizabeth Bodalski
Recommended Citation
Bodalski, E.(2025). The Effects of Physical Exercise on Emotion Dysregulation in Postsecondary Students with and Without ADHD. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/8567