The relation of personality, smoking, and physical activity in the general population

Abstract

Background: There is evidence that personality is related to health behaviours, but little is known about the relation between pathological personality traits (PPT), cigarette smoking, and physical activity. The current study examined the differences in PPT between groups of cigarette smoking and physical activity in the general population of Latvian adults. Methods: A total of 305 adults aged 18 years or over (M =39.05, SD =15.52 years) filed in demographic questionnaire, indicated information about their physical activity level and exposure to cigarette smoking, as well as completed the Latvian Clinical Personality Inventory (LCPI v.2.1.) used for the assessment of the PPT. Using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the authors examined the differences in PPT between groups of non-smokers, past smokers, occasional smokers and regular smokers and three groups of physical activity level: sedentary life, medium level, and high level of physical activity. Findings: ANOVA revealed that there were statistically significant differences between groups of physical activity in such PPT as Self-harm, Depressivity, Will to power, Grandiosity, Attention seeking, Recklessness, Perfectionism, Eccentricity and Unusual perceptions (p < .05). There were also statistically significant differences between groups of exposure to cigarette smoking in the PPT: Will to power, Grandiosity, Attention seeking, Recklessness, Irresponsibility and Eccentricity (p < .05). Discussion: The authors concluded that some pathological personality traits are related to physical activity and cigarette smoking in the general population. The implications of the results and areas of future research will be discussed in the context of health clinical psychology.