Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T03:23:01.169Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The relationship of exercise response to personality1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

R. G. Stanaway
Affiliation:
From the Department of Psychology, University of Leeds
R. P. Hullin
Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry, University of Leeds

Synopsis

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.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Åstrand, P. O. (1965). Work Tests with the Bicycle Ergometer. A. B. Cykelfabriken Monark: Varberg.Google Scholar
Cohen, M. E., and White, P. D. (1951). Life situations, emotions, and neurocirculatory asthenia (anxiety neurosis, neurasthenia, effort syndrome). Psychosomatic Medicine, 13, 335357.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysenck, H. J. (1947). Dimensions of Personality. Routledge: London.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. (1957). The Dynamics of Anxiety and Hysteria. Routledge: London.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. (1967). The Biological Basis of Personality. Thomas: Springfield, III.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J., and Eysenck, S. B. G. (1964). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. University of London Press: London.Google Scholar
Fink, M., Taylor, M. A., and Volavka, J. (1969). Anxiety precipitated by lactate. New England Journal of Medicine, 281, 1429.Google ScholarPubMed
Franks, C. M. (1956). L'echelle de Taylor et l'analyse dimensionnelle de l'anxiété. Revue de Psychologie Appliquée, 6, 3544.Google Scholar
Grosz, H. J., and Farmer, B. B. (1969). Blood lactate in the development of anxiety symptoms. Archives of General Psychiatry, 21, 611619.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guilford, J. P. (1965). Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education. 4th edn. p. 314. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Hohorst, H. J. (1963). L-(+)-lactate. Determination with lactic dehydrogenase and DPN, pp. 266–270. In Methods of Enzymatic Analysis. Edited by Bergmeyer, H. H.. Verlag Chemie: Weinheim.Google Scholar
Holmgren, A., and Ström, G. (1959). Blood lactate concentration in relation to absolute and relative work load in normal men, and in mitral stenosis, atrial septal defect and vasoregulatory asthenia. Acta Medica Scandinavica, 163, 185193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huckabee, W. E. (1958a). Relationships of pyruvate and lactate during anaerobic metabolism. I. Effects of infusion of pyruvate or glucose and of hyperventilation. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 37, 244254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huckabee, W. E. (1958b). Relationships of pyruvate and lactate during anaerobic metabolism. 2. Exercise and formation of O2-debt. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 37, 255263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, M., and Mellersh, V. (1946a). A comparison of the exercise response in anxiety states and normal controls. Psychosomatic Medicine, 8, 180187.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, M., and Mellersh, V. (1946b). A comparison of the exercise response in various groups of neurotic patients, and a method of rapid determination of oxygen in expired air, using a catharometer. Psychosomatic Medicine, 8, 192194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, D., Mitchell-Heggs, N., and Sherman, D. (1971). Anxiety and the effects of sodium lactate assessed clinically and physiologically. British Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 129141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linko, E. (1950). Lactic acid response to muscular exercise in neurocirculatory asthenia. Annales Medicinae Internae Fenniae, 39, 161176.Google ScholarPubMed
McFarland, R. A., and Huddleson, J. H. (1936). Neurocirculatory reactions in psychoneuroses studied by the Schneider method. American Journal of Psychiatry, 93, 567599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, C. C., and Voorhis, W. R. Van (1940). Statistical Procedures and their Mathematical Bases, p. 319. McGraw-Hill: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitts, F. N. (1969). The biochemistry of anxiety. Scientific American, 220, No. 2, 6975.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pitts, F. N. Jr., and McClure, J. N. Jr. (1967). Lactate metabolism in anxiety neurosis. New England Journal of Medicine, 277, 25, 13291336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, J. A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48, 285290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed