Personality, Emotional Intelligence and Exercise

Abstract

The associations of personality and self-report emotional intelligence (EI) with attitudes to exercise and self-reported exercise behaviour were investigated in a sample of 497 Canadian undergraduates. A positive attitude to exercise was negatively associated with Neuroticism and uncorrelated with other personality traits and EI. Exercise behaviour was positively associated with Extraversion and EI and negatively associated with Neuroticism. Structural equation modelling indicated that EI mediated the relationship between personality and exercise behaviour. The interpretation of this result in terms of EI having some properties of a coping style is discussed.

Influence of Emotional Intelligence as the Mediator Between Physical Activity and Mental Health (Distress) Among Malaysian University Students

“…There are a few previous researches supported the findings in this study. Saklofske et al (2007) well supported this study's findings as EI has positively correlated with positive psychological wellbeing such as life satisfaction and happiness while, EI has negatively correlated with negative psychological well-being such as depression, stress and loneliness. Equally, Lougheed and Hollenstein (2012) reported that high range of emotional regulation lowered the internalizing problems such as depression, anxiety and social anxiety while lower range of emotional regulation increased internalizing problems in adolescents.…”

“…Some of the previous research supported the findings in this study. Saklofske et al (2007) found that there was a relationship between exercise and EI by stating the effect of exercise towards social and mood regulation. Moreover, it was also supported by Li et al (2009) as they found that higher level of PA will lead students to have more positive mood, optimistic attitude and lowering negative mood.…”

“…Prior to the collection of data, researcher had reviewed in depth on the role of EI as the mediator for any relationship. Saklofske et al (2007) found the potential of EI as the mediator between personality and exercise behavior. It was found that EI mediated the relationship between personality and exercise behavior.…”

“…Saklofske et al (2007) showed that potential of EI as the mediator between personality and exercise behavior similar as the role of coping. To date, EI provide a mechanism regarded as having coping attributes toward the personality and health behavior (Saklofske et al, 2007). Hassan and Shabani (2013) examined the mediating role of EI between spiritual intelligence and MH problems.…”

“…Moreover, EI has been found to be positively correlated with some measures of psychological well-being which were life satisfaction and happiness, but negatively correlated with depression, stress and loneliness (Saklofske et al, 2007). It was believed that EI is a complex construct that contained emotion, personal and social abilities as included in self-assessment of emotion on one self and other, create and maintain relationship with others, ability to express emotion, emotion management, self-control, and affective problem solving (Pourmohamadreza-Tajrishi et al, 2013).…”