Abstract
The effects of exercise and leisure activity on positive mood, anxiety and depression in college age women was investigated. Individuals participated in a 30-minute activity, either exercise or reading, performed indoors or outdoors. Variables were measured using the MAACL to assess mood, the STAI to assess anxiety, and the CESD to assess depression. Participants were 100 female undergraduate students with a mean age of 22.09 (SD = 5.19). The sample was multi-ethnic with a majority of European Americans (56%). Contrary to the hypotheses, results indicated that participants who performed activities outdoors reported higher levels of state anxiety F(1, 98) = 10.75, p = .002 and depression F(1, 98) = 3.98, p = .050 than those who performed activities indoors. Further analyses indicated that those in the outdoor condition were higher in trait anxiety, thus random assignment did not minimize individual differences across conditions, and could account for the unexpected findings.