Examining relationship between personality characteristics and exercise dependence

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relation between personality traits, based on the five factor model, and exercise dependence symptomatology. There were 423 voluntary participants (216 male and 201 female) who exercised regularly over a year selected for this study. By using Eating Disorder Inventory–2 questionnaire, participants who scored in the at-risk range were excluded from analysis. All athletes completed the Exercise Dependence Scale and the Big Five Questionnaire. The results seem to confirm the relation between exercise dependence and certain personality characteristics (Hausenblas & Giacobbi, 2004) suggesting that extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness may potentially be underlying factors in exercise dependence symptomatology. This finding aims to contribute to understanding the role that personality can play in the etiology of exercise dependence. This could be relevant for potentially identifying individuals who may be at risk for dysfunctional dependence behaviors.