Fit to be good: Physical fitness is negatively associated with deviance

While modern organizations generate economic value, they also produce negative externalities in terms of human physical fitness, such that workers globally are becoming physically unfit. In the current research, we focus on a significant but overlooked indirect cost that lack of physical fitness entails—deviance. In contrast to early (and methodologically limited) research in criminology, which suggests that physically fit people are more likely to behave in a deviant manner, we draw on self-control theory to suggest the opposite: that physically fit people are less likely to engage in deviance. In Study 1, concurrent as well as time-lagged analyses of a nine-year data across 50 metropolitan areas in the U.S. reveal that physical fitness index of a metropolitan area is negatively related to deviance in that area. We complement this aggregate-level theory test with two studies testing the theory at the individual level. In Study 2, we collect multi-source data from 3,925 military recruits who underwent physical training and find that those who score higher on physical fitness test are less likely to engage in deviance. Study 3 conceptually replicates the effect with both concurrent and time-lagged models using a five-wave longitudinal design involving employees working in service roles, and also finds that ego depletion mediates the effect of physical activity on workplace deviance. Our findings have implications for organizations concerning initiatives and investments to promote employees’ physical fitness and wellness.