This study of relationships between personality and exercise frequency was based on 22,448 residents (40 to 64 years old) in Miyagi, Japan. They completed the self-administered questionnaires on their exercise frequency and the Japanese version of the short form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Higher scores on Extraversion were positively related to exercising and higher scores on Neuroticism and Psychoticism were positively related to “not exercising” in a general population for both sexes. These observed relationships were consistent even when an analysis of covariance was conducted with controlling for possible confounding factors of age, marital status, and education.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AraiY.HosokawaT.FukaoA.IzumiY.HisamichiS. (1997) Smoking behaviour and personality: A population-based study in Japan. Addiction, 92, 1023–1034.
2.
BreslowL.EnstromE. (1980) Persistence of health habits and their relationship to mortality. Preventive Medicine, 9, 469–483.
3.
BrunnerB. C. (1969) Personality and motivating factors influencing adult participation in vigorous physical activity. Research Quarterly, 40, 464–469.
4.
EysenckS. B. G.EysenckH. J.BarretP. (1985) A revised version of the Psychoticism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 21–29.
5.
FrancisL. J.BennettG. A. (1992) Personality and religion among female drug misusers. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 30, 27–31.
6.
FukaoA.TubonoY.KomatsuS.TsujiI.MinamiY.HisamichiS.HosokawaT.KuwaharaM.TakanoA.SugiharaN.IkedaT.NishikooriM. (1995a) A cohort study on the relation of lifestyle, personality, biological markers to cancer in Miyagi, Japan: Study design, response rate and profiles of the cohort subjects. Journal of Epidemiology, 5, 153–157.
7.
FukaoA.TubonoY.KuwaharaM.IdoT.AkazawaN.TsujiI.KomatsuS.MinamiY.HisamichiS. (1995b) The independent relation of smoking and drinking to serum β-carotene levels among males in Miyagi, Japan. International Journal of Epidemiology, 25, 300–306.
8.
FurnhamA. (1981) Personality and activity preference. British Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 57–68.
9.
HosokawaT.IhyamaM. (1993) Reliability and validity of a Japanese version of the short-form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Psychological Reports, 72, 823–832.
10.
NorušisM. J. (1990a) SPSS advanced system user's guide. Chicago. IL: SPSS, Inc.
11.
NorušisM. J. (1990b) SPSS base system user's guide. Chicago. IL SPSS, Inc.
12.
PaffenbarcerR. S.HydeR. T. (1984) Exercise in the prevention of coronary heart disease. Preventive Medicine, 13, 3–22.
13.
PageR. M.HammermeisterJ. (1995) Shyness and loneliness: The relationship to exercise. Psychological Reports, 76, 395–398.
14.
SallisJ.HaskellW. L.FortmanS. P.VranisanK. M.TaylorC. B.SolomonD. S. (1986) Predictors of adoption and maintenance of physical activity In a community sample. Preventive Medicine, 15, 331–341.
15.
SiscovickD. S.LaporteR. E.NewmanJ. M. (1985) The disease specific benefits and risk of physical activity and exercise. Public Health Report, 100, 180–189.
16.
StandingL.SproulieR.KhouzamN. (1990) Empirical statistics: IV. Illustrating Meehl's sixth law of soft psychology: Everything correlates everything. Psychological Reports, 69, 123–126.
17.
SzaboA. (1992) Habitual participation in exercise and personality. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 74, 978.
18.
VingerhoetsA. J. J. M.CroonM.JenigaA. J.MengesL. J. (1990) Personality and health habits. Psychology and Health, 4, 333–342.
