Personality Traits and Exercise Motivation Among College Students

Exercise and its benefits have been studied for a long period of time. Something that has gained interest is identifying what influences individuals to exercise, and if personality has any impact. The purpose of this study was to understand if conscientiousness and neuroticism influenced different exercise motivations. Participants (N=97, Males= 39, Females= 58) were recruited from academic and athletic clubs at Winona State University. The participants filled out multiple inventories using paper and pencil. This study is looking in particular at the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Exercise Motivation Inventory-2 (EMI-2). Bivariate correlation analyses were conducted in order to examine the relationship between variables, using SPSS, version 25. Significant positive correlations were found between conscientiousness and ill health avoidance, positive health, and stress management. A significant negative correlation was found between neuroticism and positive health. The results indicate that those who are higher in conscientiousness engage in healthy exercise habits, while those lower in neuroticism may be exercising to improve health. These findings can be useful in identifying personality traits to help motivate individuals to exercisehttps://openriver.winona.edu/urc2019/1079/thumbnail.jp