Psychological Medicine

Table of Contents - 1973 - Volume 3, Issue 03  

Research Article

The relationship of exercise response to personality1

R. G. Stanawaya1 and R. P. Hullina2

a1 From the Department of Psychology, University of Leeds

a2 Department of Biochemistry, University of Leeds

Abstract

In an experiment to investigate the relationship of exercise response to the personality dimensions of introversion-extraversion and neuroticism, 30 subjects filled in an Eysenck Personality Inventory and were later given a standard amount of exercise on a bicycle ergometer, with blood samples being taken before and afterwards to be analysed for lactate and glucose. A highly significant positive correlation was found between neuroticism and the change in blood glucose and a highly significant curvilinear relationship between neuroticism and the increase in blood lactate, with the largest increases in lactate occurring at the extremes of the neuroticism scale. No significant relationship was found between introversion-extraversion and either of the biochemical variables. Hypotheses are put forward to account for the relationship between neuroticism and the change in blood glucose in terms of the action of adrenaline in releasing glucose from the liver, and to account for the relationship between neuroticism and the increase in blood lactate in terms of differing rates of pulmonary ventilation during and after exercise.

Footnotes

1 This research was supported financially by the Medical Research Council (R. G. Stanaway, Research Studentship; R. P. Hullin, Research Grant).

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