Affective, but hardly effective: A reply to Gauvin and Rejeski (2001)

Background and purpose: This paper is a reply to Gauvin and Rejeski's rebuttal (Psychol. Sport Exerc. 2 (2001) 73) of a previously published conceptual and methodological critique (Psychol. Sport Exerc. 2 (2001) 1) of the Exercise-induced Feeling Inventory (EFI; J. Sport Exerc. Psychol. 15 (1993) 403). Methods: Our responses focus on (a) issues regarding scientific debates, (b) the necessity of psychometric scrutiny, (c) the ongoing search for a definition of "exercise-induced feeling states," (d) concerns regarding the underrepresentation of the intended domain of content of the EFI and its appropriate uses, (e) the implications of inductive and deductive scale development, (f) several methodological issues, (g) the value of a circumplex model for exercise psychology research, and (h) the compatibility of categorical and dimensional models of affect. Results and conclusions: We maintain that the most important issues raised in the original critique of the EFI, such as the definition, the demarcation, and the structure of its intended domain of content, were not addressed in Gauvin and Rejeski's rejoinder and remain unclear. Researchers are urged to contemplate the theoretical bases and to scrutinize the psychometric data of the available measures before making their selection.