6.4: Considerations forPersonality in the Promotion of Physical Activity

Evidence suggests that personality may be a useful tool for professionals who are attempting to reduce the risk of disease by increasing physical activity level. Personality appears related to physiological health outcomes of exercise, including body mass index (Sutin & Terracciano, 2016), and cardiovascular and metabolic fitness (Terracciano et al., 2013), and is associated with health outcomes related to physical activity, including mental health (Klein et al., 2011; Steel et al., 2008), allostatic load (Milad & Bogg, 2020), and risk for chronic diseases (Compare et al., 2014; Jokela et al., 2014).Further, personality is significantly related to treatment adherence (Christensen & Smith, 1995).

Associations between personality and physical activity represent a potentially challenging obstacle and not a target for change. Personality resembles other intractable demographic correlates of physical activity such as age, disability status, or gender. Thus, health promoters need to consider interventions adapted to maximize outcomes according to personality differences. Little is known how personality impacts intervention reach (i.e., the effectiveness of strategies designed to attract people to exercise programs) and effectiveness (Glasgow et al., 1999). Personality might also predict which people are likely to succeed in the adoption and maintenance of a new behavior, such as physical activity, and who may be at risk for dropout or poor behavioral maintenance.

Some early evidence suggests that motivational traits interact with promotional message content to influence how that content is perceived. In a large sample (n= 800) of undergraduates, messages about physical activity that were presented in a gain-framed format (i.e. presenting the positive outcomes of a physically activity lifestyle) were perceived significantly more positively by individuals who scored high for approach motivation (conceptually similar to a profile of high Extraversion and low Neuroticism). On the other hand, loss-framed messages, presenting the negative outcomes of a sedentary lifestyle, were perceived significantly more negatively by people who scored high for avoidance motivation (conceptually similar to high Neuroticism and low Extraversion; Wilson & Estabrooks, 2020). Such differences could plausibly translate to an enhanced or reduced likelihood to volunteer for programs such as those being promoted in selected messages. Another study found that messages designed to target affect (i.e., “enjoyable” messages) were more effective in increasing walking behavior among conscientious individuals than messages targeting knowledge (i.e. “instrumental” messages), and that walking behavior increased under this messaging condition to a greater extent than for their less conscientious counterparts (Why et al., 2010).

Though the proposal for personality-matched interventions has appeal, there is very limited research on this approach at present. What evidence there is, is mixed. Rhodes and Matheson (2008) attempted a planning intervention for individuals low in Conscientiousness aimed at improving physical activity. Physical activity did not differ between the intervention and control group, however. Importantly, this null result may have reflected an ineffective intervention approach, as most of the participants reported that they did not complete the planning worksheet, highlighting the issue of participant compliance with intervention protocols. This may especially be true for people scoring low for Conscientiousness, as they are characterized by low adherence to instructions and an absent sense of duty to comply. More recently, a planning intervention was observed to significantly impact the translation of intention for physical activity into successful performance of the behavior in a sample of 136 adults in cardiac rehabilitation, but only for those with high levels of Conscientiousness (Lippke et al., 2018). This echoes the observational evidence discussed previously with regard to intention, personality, and physical activity, and underscores the importance of identifying methods to assist individuals with low levels of Conscientiousness in following through on behavioral intentions.

Evidence linking personality to preference for, or responsiveness to, specific behavior change techniques could inform the continued efforts towards intervention adaptions according to personality. One study assessed ratings of behavioral techniques applied in mobile apps promoting physical activity among a sample of Dutch adults. Belmon and colleagues found that Agreeableness was related to a preference for goal setting and goal reviewing techniques, and Neuroticism was related to negative ratings of feedback and self-monitoring techniques (Belmon et al., 2015). Some evidence suggests that individual differences in Extraversion and Neuroticism may impact how effective different social strategies are for influencing behavior change. Extraverts and those scoring higher on Neuroticism were found to increase physical activity in response to a mobile app intervention under a condition of social comparison, but not peer pressure (Lepri et al., 2016). Another study examined personality in the context of behavior change when participants were provided a wearable physical activity tracker for a 35-day period. Among a sample (n= 52) of adults, step count increased significantly more over time with increasing increments of Conscientiousness, as well as among individuals with a combination of high scores for Conscientiousness and Neuroticism (Stieger et al., 2020). Interestingly, personality may also impact how using a wearable physical activity tracker makes them feel. Some evidence suggests that increasing increments of Openness and Conscientiousness are positively related to experiencing positive affect while wearing a physical activity tracker (Ryan et al., 2019). It should be noted that the opposite of positive affect is the absence of positive affect, rather than negative affect(Watson et al., 1999; Watson & Tellegen, 1999; but see Russell & Carroll, 1999; Chapter 12, Zenko & Ladwig, 2021). That is to say, the corollary to these observations is that with decreasing increments of Openness and Conscientiousness, we might expect no effect of wearables on positive affect. Encouragingly, there were no associations between personality and negative affect related to wearing a physical activity tracker. These early results underscore the importance of considering personality in the context of selecting behavior change techniques and suggest that targeted approaches based on personality may be helpful to maximize intervention effectiveness. Continued work is needed to ascertain the utility of personality-matched intervention.

Though emerging evidence is encouraging, direct tests of strategies targeting individual differences in personality have yet to be reported for interventions aiming to increase physical activity. Table 6.2 presents considerations derived from the body of evidence reviewed herein. An earlier iteration of these considerations is presented by Newsome et al., (in press). These preliminary considerations are presented with the intent to inform the application of personality psychology to physical activity promotion, and to provide a basis from which personality tailored or targeted approaches may be developed and tested with rigorous study design. It should be emphasized that this list of considerations has not been fully empirically tested and reflects the expertise and interpretations of the limited body of evidence discussed herein by the authors. Further, use of these considerations may be particularly challenging as they focus on individual traits. It is likely that individuals will present with high or low scores on multiple traits, complicating the application of these considerations. Everyone expresses individual differences on each of the Big Five factors; in other words, we are all classifiable according to this model and each of us present characteristics along each of these five dimensions. As an example of the challenge presented, imagine two individuals who both score high for Extraversion. These two individuals, however, score significantly differently for another trait, like Openness. This very likely influences the types of behavioral strategies that will work best for each person. Practitioners may be able to combine considerations to accommodate for these unique interactions. For example, because extraverts like being active with others, and open individuals prefer unsupervised, outdoor activities (Courneya & Hellsten, 1998), one might recommend joining an unsupervised, socially supported (i.e., recruit a walking buddy), outdoor walking program to an open, extraverted patient. As is standard in physical activity programming, practitioners should always include the client in the development of a physical activity program. Considerations listed here should be viewed only as a potential starting point for discussion around program development.

Table 6.2. Considerations for Physical Activity Promotion and Exercise Programming for People with High or Low Scores on the Big Five Personality Dimensions

Table 6.2 (continued)