ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PERSONALITY TRAITS AND ATTENDING A FITNESS CENTER

Abstract

The sports and recreation industry is emerging in Taiwan. Few related studies have used it as a sample. This study has been designed to explore the notion of personality traits based on fitness center members in Taiwan. Because of its validity and wide use (Furnham, Moutafi, & Crump, 2003), the Five Factor Model (FFM) developed by McCrae and John (1992) is adopted in this study to assess the personality of fitness center members. The measurement scale of personality traits is cited from Saucier's (1994) Mini-Markers. The empirical findings reveal that those people with low tendency to experience negative emotions, i.e., neuroticism, and high tendency to experience positive emotions, i.e., extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, will join the fitness center. Sports and recreation industry managers can design strategy to satisfy their customer needs based on these findings.