Assistant Professor Kathryn (Katey) Wilson’s work focuses on understanding whether we can leverage personality differences in our efforts to help people become and stay active. Recognizing the many health benefits of physical activity, Wilson hopes to help individuals develop the skills necessary to maintain a physically active lifestyle. Her desire to do so stems from her personal observations that being physically active can drastically improve one’s day-to-day mood and psychological well-being. Jokingly, Wilson explains her motivation with the popular quote from the 2001 smash hit, “Legally Blonde”: “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t kill their husbands, they just don’t.”
While the scientific support for the underlying role of endorphins in the psychological benefit of exercise is mixed and in continual development, this quote gets at the heart of Dr. Wilson’s pursuit – to help people lead happy, healthy lives. To do so, she is taking an unusual approach, recognizing that our unique personalities may be the key to identifying the specific needs of individuals trying to become and stay active.
Current practice commonly uses behavioral approaches to change psychological factors important for behavior change, like attitudes, intentions and perceptions of competence – strategies that might be used to improve one’s ability to make small, attainable goals and create and execute action plans to meet those goals. But Wilson feels that we are missing an important part of the equation – specifically, people are different.
Personality theory provides the framework by which we may identify what approaches work best for whom, based on our unique behavioral tendencies which stem from underlying personality. Wilson has conducted research in the following areas:
- How personality impacts our subjective experience of exercise (i.e., do people feel different during exercise according to their personality? For example, extraverts may find high intensity exercise more enjoyable than introverts.1)
- How personality impacts our perceptions of positively or negatively framed information about physical activity (i.e., does personality influence the way people receive information about physical activity depending on how that information is presented? It may be useful to know how best to present information to maximize understanding and subsequent motivation to act.2)
- How personality impacts natural flux in psychological antecedents of physical activity behavior (i.e., do different types of people experience more frequent changes in attitudes and intentions over time depending on their personality?3 It could be useful to know how personality influences differences in the stability of psychological predictors of physical activity so that we can identify the most appropriate targets for behavioral interventions.)
Currently, Wilson is carving a niche by developing the first-ever personality-informed physical activity promotion interventions. Some of this work follows her recent publication of personality-based recommendations for professionals aiming to promote physical activity in ACSM’s Health and Fitness Journal4 and in her most recent textbook chapter.5 She will be seeking support from the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association to implement her novel interventions, testing the hypothesis that behavioral approaches tailored according to personality traits will be more effective than current evidence-based practice in physical activity promotion.
1. Wilson, K., and Dishman, R. “Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Traits Moderate Subjective Responses to Acute Exercise in College Students.” Paper presented at annual meeting of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2015, Edinburgh, Scotland.
2. Wilson, K., and Estabrooks, P.A. “Physical Activity Promotion Message Perceptions Biased by Motivational Dispositions.” Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 2020, 12(3): 610-635.
3. Wilson, K. “Personality Moderates Change in Exercise Self-Efficacy and Descriptive Norms: A Longitudinal Observation.” Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, 2023, Denver, Colo.
4. Newsome, A.N., Kilpatrick, M., Mastrofini, G., and Wilson, K. “Personality Traits and Physical Activity: Helping Exercise Professionals Maximize Client Outcomes.” ACSM’s Health and Fitness Journal, 2021, July/August 2021: 12-18.
5. Wilson, K.E., and Rhodes, R.E. “Personality and Physical Activity.” In Zenko and Jones, eds., “Essentials of Exercise and Sport Psychology: An Open Access Textbook.” Society for the Transparency, Openness and Replication in Kinesiology, 2021: 114-149.