Investigation of the relationship between exercise addiction and personality traits of university students

Background and Study Aim. It is a fact that in recent years people's interest in being healthy and physical appearance has increased. Therefore, it can be said that the number of people exercising is increasing day by day. It is seen that some of these people who exercise are now at the level of addiction. This study was conducted to determine the effect and relationship of personality traits on exercise addiction. Material and Methods. The sample of the study consists of 535 people, 160 females and 375 males, who are studying at Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University and selected by simple random sampling method. In order to collect data in the study a personal information form including the demographic characteristics of the participants was requested. The Exercise Addiction Scale for Youth was administered. The Five Factor Personality Scale, which consists of openness to experience, conscientiousness (self-control), extraversion, agreeableness and emotional instability (neuroticism) sub-dimensions, was used. T-test was used for pairwise comparisons and ANOVA test was used for multiple comparisons. Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between personality and exercise addiction and regression analysis was used to determine the effect of personality on exercise addiction. Results. In the study, it was determined that there was a significant difference in terms of exercise addiction in the variables of gender, age, having an athlete license and years of doing sports. In addition, it was seen that there was a significant difference in terms of personality sub-dimensions in the variables of gender, having an athlete license and years of doing sports. While it was seen that there was a significant positive correlation between the participants' personality scale average and exercise addiction. It was determined that personality explained 18% of exercise addiction. Conclusions. As a result of the study, it was observed that: being male and being a licensed athlete increased the level of exercise addiction; the exercise habit turned into addiction with increasing age. Personality traits were found to have a positive relationship and significant effect on exercise addiction.