Most of us have a good grasp on our personality. In some ways, personality traits help us define who we are, adding colour to how beautifully diverse the word is. If you enjoy bright colours, loud music, and being surrounded by people, you’re likely quite extroverted. If you are driven by curiosity and love trying new things, you would be considered open-minded. If you often find yourself replaying conversations in your head, or worrying about making everything perfect, you might score highly on the trait of neuroticism. Perhaps you often make lists, and you’re good at completing them; if so, you might tick the contentiousness box. Personality traits like these are really just another way of describing who we are, how we behave, and how we react to our environment. It turns out that those traits don’t just define how many friends we want at our birthday party; they can also shape how we engage with physical activity.
In our lab at University College London (UCL), and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH), we set out to discover more about these connections. We thought that if we could identify a relationship between personality traits and activity preference, we might be able to individually tailor exercise recommendations. After all, there really isn’t much use in prescribing a training plan to someone who won’t enjoy it, especially if we want to see a sustainable behaviour change. As it turns out, our personality contributes quite strongly to how much we enjoy different types of workouts.
The study design
One-hundred and thirty participants underwent a lab-based fitness test, completed a Big Five personality questionnaire and a stress questionnaire, and were given an eight-week training plan. The plan included three days per week of cycling (each session at a different intensity), and one day of body weight strength training. After each session, participants rated how much they enjoyed the session. After the eight weeks, participants were invited back into the lab to test their fitness again and repeat the stress questionnaire. The plan did what it said on the tin: Participants in the intervention group improved both strength and endurance, regardless of their personality profile. But did they enjoy it?
Personality and exercise engagement
We were curious to understand whether there were associations between personality traits and baseline fitness levels. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the highly conscientious participants totalled the highest number of weekly hours of physical activity, and exhibited the most well-rounded fitness scores: They were leaner, more active, and scored highly on almost every test, from endurance, to power, to core strength (those important muscles around your trunk that hold your posture). However, conscientiousness didn’t predict enjoyment of any particular session throughout the eight-week plan. In fact, we know from other research that conscientious individuals are likely to be driven by the health benefits of exercise, whether they enjoy them or not. Maybe this is a good incentive to become a little more diligent with our workout routines if we want to maximise the benefits from our gym plans.
Extraverts in this study were particularly driven by emotion in their response to exercise; they enjoyed the high-intensity sessions the most, such as the High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) ride and the VO2max test (15 minutes of cycling, gradually increasing to exhaustion). This is not to say that introverts didn’t enjoy them, but extraverts seemed to be particularly drawn to anything that enabled them to ‘give it all’. They enjoyed the lab-based VO2max test so much that they pushed even harder during their second visit! This might explain why were they were also the fittest on the endurance tests, even though their strength scores weren’t necessarily impressive. Considering the need for stimulation that is characteristic of extraversion, perhaps the high-intensity workouts satisfied that pursuit for the arousal that this group seems so drawn to. In addition to the physiological response to high-intensity exercise, there may have also been a social facilitation effect during the lab test: being surrounded by researchers monitoring your every vital certainly counts as an audience effect, which has been previously shown to improve performance in extraverted sportspeople.
Neuroticism
A trait that predicted both exercise behaviours and enjoyment particularly strongly was neuroticism. A person who scores high on neuroticism is prone to overthink, worry, and ruminate. This group did seem to benefit from 10 minutes of stretching. Contrarily to what one might assume, however, this group really didn’t mind the high-intensity sessions, as long as they were given space for a break: They disliked 30 minutes of constant vigorous cycling, but they were fine with the HIIT rides. The VO2max test didn’t bother them either, possibly because it was shorter and more structured. Perhaps what mattered most to this group was having room to pause. In fact, being monitored was a significant cause for aversion in many ways. For example, being observed in the lab wasn’t exactly their idea of fun; they particularly disliked a light cycling test completed in the lab which was used to monitor metabolism at low intensities, and they failed to record their heart rate during their home-based sessions (when they knew we really needed that data). However, despite not monitoring their heart rate, they still completed all the sessions, they improved in fitness, and – most importantly of all – they saw a significant reduction in stress after completing the plan. Maybe they just wanted to be left alone, and get on with their workouts in peace. Individuals who are likely to be anxious may therefore benefit from being given space for privacy and independence when engaging with an exercise plan.
We should note that the sample was slightly biased, as 77% of participants scored high on openness. It does take some courage to join a study that requires two hours of lab-based testing, so this might be an inherent bias of most human research. Interestingly, while ‘open-minded’ participants did not enjoy the higher intensity cycling sessions in their plan, they were the most likely to return to the lab for post-intervention testing. Perhaps they were driven by the curiosity of seeing their results, which brought them back to the lab for another round of difficult high intensity testing.
What about stress?
The study was conducted at the tail end of the various Covid-19 lockdowns, where most participants were emergency workers: police officers, nurses, ambulance drivers…people who keep us alive, safe and well, and who put themselves under incredible amounts of stress to serve others. All day. Every day. We asked them to complete a self-reported stress questionnaire before and after the eight-week training plan, hoping that our exercise intervention might help alleviate some of that mental burden. The group-level findings were underwhelming: no change in stress. However, those who scored more highly on neuroticism exhibited a statistically significant reduction in stress after the intervention (despite starting with the same stress level as everyone else). It was very encouraging to find that those who might need it the most were the same ones who benefitted from the stress-reducing effects of exercise.
Where do we go from here?
While it might be tempting to draw up a clear diagram that determines which form of exercise you should do if you’re an extravert, a neurotic, or highly conscientious, it’s important not to be misled into placing anyone in boxes. Personality traits live on a spectrum; they interact with each other and with our circumstances. For example, while neuroticism can predict lower engagement in exercise, conscientious neurotics are actually more likely to make an effort not to miss their session, because they’re aware of its benefits.
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Ultimately, the key message is to spend more time introspecting after our workouts. Try something new, and then consider: How did you feel after your session? Tired, calm, nervous, energised? Next time, try tweaking the intensity of that workout, or shift to something else like weights, jogging, or dancing, and see how that makes you feel afterwards.
After all, all that matters is that we move, and that we do so through something we enjoy.