Jaclyn Maher

Dr. Maher’s research aims to understand (1) how motivational processes within and outside of our awareness regulate our physical activity and sedentary behavior, (2) how physical activity and sedentary behavior impact psychological health and well-being, and (3) how best to use technology to capture the dynamics of motivation, behavior, evaluations, and feelings as well as to intervene on behavior. The ultimate goal of her research is to develop low burden, just-in-time adaptive interventions that help people to create meaningful behavior change in the context of their everyday lives. Dr. Maher has conducted research in populations across the lifespan ranging from children to older adults. In 2016, Dr. Maher earned the Outstanding Dissertation Award from Division 47 of the American Psychological Association for her dissertation research on the dynamics of older adults' sedentary behavior. Prior to joining the faculty at UNCG, Dr. Maher was a post-doctoral scholar in the Real-Time Eating, Activity, and Children’s Health Lab in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Kinesiology (concentration: Psychology of Physical Activity) from the Pennsylvania State University.

There are 32 included publications by Jaclyn Maher :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Acceptability of mobile health interventions to reduce inactivity-related health risk in central Pennsylvania adults 2015 488 Insufficient physical activity and excessive sedentary behavior elevate health risk. Mobile applications (apps) provide one mode for delivering interventions to modify these behaviors and reduce health risk. The purpose of this study was to character...
Association Between Self-Reported and Objective Activity Levels by Demographic Factors: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study in Children 2018 396 Background: To address the limitations of the retrospective self-reports of activity, such as its susceptibility to recall bias, researchers have shifted toward collecting real-time activity data on mobile devices via ecological momentary assessment ...
Associations of maternal stress with children's weight-related behaviours: a systematic literature review 2017 350 Low adherence to guidelines for weight-related behaviours (e.g. dietary intake and physical activity) among US children underscores the need to better understand how parental factors may influence children's obesity risk. In addition to most often ac...
Behavior Change Techniques in Top-Ranked Mobile Apps for Physical Activity 2014 3959 Background: Mobile applications (apps) have potential for helping people increase their physical activity, but little is known about the behavior change techniques marketed in these apps.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to cha...
A Daily Analysis of Physical Activity and Satisfaction With Life in Emerging Adults 2013 1825 Objective: Subjective well-being has well-established positive health consequences. During emerging adulthood, from ages 18 to 25 years, people’s global evaluations of their well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life [SWL]) appear to worsen more...
Daily Associations of Stress and Eating in Mother–Child Dyads 2017 376 Background and Aims. This study used Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) in mother–child dyads to examine the day-level associations of stress and eating. Method. Mothers and their 8- to 12-year-old children (N = 167 dyads) completed ...
Daily Life Satisfaction in Older Adults as a Function of (In)Activity 2017 1542 Objectives. This 14-day daily diary study tested the between-person and within-person associations between sedentary behavior, physical activity, and life satisfaction in community-dwelling older adults.

Method. Older adults (...
Daily physical activity and life satisfaction across adulthood 2015 2403 Physical activity is considered a valuable tool for enhancing life satisfaction. However, the processes linking these constructs likely differ across the adult life span. In older adults the association between physical activity and life satisfaction...
A Daily Process Analysis of Intentions and Physical Activity in College Students 2013 1537 Social-cognitive theories, such as the theory of planned behavior, posit intentions as proximal influences on physical activity (PA). This paper extends those theories by examining within-person variation in intentions and moderate-to-vigorous physic...
A daily process analysis of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and perceived cognitive abilities 2014 646 Objectives: This study evaluated the role of both physical activity and sedentary behavior in daily perceptions of cognitive abilities and whether these relations exist within-person, between-person, or both.

Design: Non-experime...
Daily Satisfaction with Life Is Regulated by Both Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior 2014 2703 Recent research revealed that on days when college students engage in more physical activity than is typical for them, they also experience greater satisfaction with life (SWL). That work relied on self-reported physical activity and did not differen...
Dual Versus Single Parental Households and Differences in Maternal Mental Health and Child's Overweight/Obesity 2019 456 Objectives: Mothers report higher levels of psychological stress than fathers. s. Psychological stress is posited to influence parenting practices that could increase children’s obesity risk. However, previous studies have not investigated several as...
A dual-process model of older adults’ sedentary behavior 2016 3235 Objective: This 14-day daily diary study tested a dual-process model of motivation to determine the between-person (time-invariant) and within-person (time-varying) processes associated with older adults’ daily sedentary behavior. This model i...
Ecological Momentary Assessment Is a Feasible and Valid Methodological Tool to Measure Older Adults’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior 2018 1434 Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has the potential to yield new insights into theprediction and modeling of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB). The objective ofthis study was to determine the feasibility and validity of an EMA pr...
An Electronic Ecological Momentary Assessment Study to Examine the Consumption of High-Fat/High-Sugar Foods, Fruits/Vegetables, and Affective States Among Women 2018 234 Objective: To examine the associations between high-fat/high-sugar foods (HFHS) and fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption and affective states in women.

Methods: The researchers used electronic ecological momentary assessment to capture HFHS an...
Enhancing our understanding of physical activity and subjective well-being with a lifespan perspective 2013 1053 Physical activity might be a viable tool for enhancing mental wellbeing because, in general, physical activity has been found to be related to more positive affect and higher satisfaction with life. The way we think, feel, and act changes with age, s...
Feasibility and Preliminary Efficacy of an Intervention to Reduce Older Adults' Sedentary Behavior 2017 1170 Older adults represent the segment of the population that sits the most. This study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, safety, and preliminary efficacy of an intervention to reduce sedentary behavior (SB) in older adults that can be disseminat...
Habit Strength Moderates the Effects of Daily Action Planning Prompts on Physical Activity but Not Sedentary Behavior 2015 2741 This study was designed to examine the moderating influence of habit strength on daily action planning effects on physical activity and sedentary behavior. A 2 by 2 design was used with experimental factors corresponding to action planning interventi...
Habits Predict Physical Activity on Days When Intentions Are Weak 2014 964 Physical activity is regulated by controlled processes, such as intentions, and automatic processes, such as habits. Intentions relate to physical activity more strongly for people with weak habits than for people with strong habits, but people’s int...
Implementation of Behavior Change Techniques in Mobile Applications for Physical Activity 2015 1981 Background: Mobile applications (apps) for physical activity are popular and hold promise for promoting behavior change and reducing non-communicable disease risk. App marketing materials describe a limited number of behavior change techniques...
Intention–behavior gap is wider for walking and moderate physical activity than for vigorous physical activity in university students 2016 569 Objectives: The theory of planned behavior proposes that physical activity is the result of intentions; however little is known about whether the relation between intentions and behavior differs between vigorous, moderate physical activity, an...
Mean level of positive affect moderates associations between volatility in positive affect, mental health, and alcohol consumption among mothers 2018 1271 Affective volatility (i.e., variability) is typically conceptualized as a marker of poor mental and behavioral health. The current research challenges this notion. Among individuals who typically experience low positive affect (PA), vacillation betwe...
Momentary assessment of physical activity intention-behavior coupling in adults 2017 1270 Research attempting to elucidate physical activity (PA) intention-behavior relations has focused on differences in long-term behavior forecasting between people. However, regular PA requires a repeated performance on a daily or within-daily basis. An...
Objectively-Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Time are Differentially Related to Dietary Fat and Carbohydrate Intake in Children 2018 298 Background: Research on the clustering of physical activity, sedentary, and dietary intake behaviors in children has relied on retrospective and parent-report measures, which may obscure true associations. The current study combined objectively-measu...
Parenting styles, food-related parenting practices, and children's healthy eating: A mediation analysis to examine relationships between parenting and child diet 2018 327 Parents exert a strong influence on their children's diet. While authoritative parenting style is linked to healthier weight and dietary outcomes in children, and authoritarian and permissive parenting styles with unhealthy eating, little is known ab...
Perceptions of the activity, the social climate, and the self during group exercise classes regulate intrinsic satisfaction 2015 1542 Engaging in regular physical activity is a challenging task for many adults. Intrinsic satisfaction with exercise classes is thought to promote adherence to physical activity. This study examined the characteristics of exercise classes that impact wi...
Relationships among affective states, physical activity, and sedentary behavior in children: Moderation by perceived stress 2018 453 Objective: We examined the acute bidirectional relationships between affective states and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) or sedentary behavior (SB) in children, and whether perceived stress moderates these associations. Method: A total...
Sedentary behavior as a daily process regulated by habits and intentions 2013 819 Objective: Sedentary behavior is a health risk but little is known about the motivational processes that regulate daily sedentary behavior. This study was designed to test a dual-process model of daily sedentary behavior, with an emphasis on t...
Should I sit or stand: likelihood of adherence to messages about reducing sitting time 2019 318 Background: High population levels of sitting is contributing to high rates of chronic health problems. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the sitting time messages with the greatest potential to reduce sitting behaviour, as well as ide...
The state of behavior change techniques in virtual reality rehabilitation of neurologic populations: A systematic review 2019 437 Background: Neurologic rehabilitation aims to restore function, address barriers to activity, and improve quality of life in those with injury to the nervous system. Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a useful tool to enhance neurorehabilitation int...
Towards evidence-based smartphone apps to enhance human health: Adoption of behavior change techniques 2018 253 There has been a substantial increase in the number of health-related smartphone applications (apps) available to consumers in recent years. How does one decide which apps have scientific evidence backing their claims and which are “fake news”? In th...
Within-Day Time-Varying Associations Between Behavioral Cognitions and Physical Activity in Adults 2016 1717 This study used time-varying effect modeling to examine time-of-day differences in how behavioral cognitions predict subsequent physical activity (PA). Adults (N = 116) participated in three 4-day “bursts” of ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Pa...