Posted byellie prior-clarkeFebruary 16, 2020Posted inUncategorized

Personalities. Huh. Does anyone else forget that not everyone has the same personality, or that personalities even exist. Okay, so that’s probably just me. It has recently been brought to light in a lecture that personality types affect my running. It seemed obvious that different people would face different challenges but never had I considered it would be caused by innate personality traits, instead of external factors. It was suggested by Egloff & Gruhn that even simply being an introvert will inhibit your chance of becoming a runner.  

After being reminded about personality types I decided it would be interesting to find out exactly what mine was. According to the Disc Test  I’m dominant! Which isn’t wrong but not exactly what I wanted to hear. Especially as it essentially means that I’m bossy.

 The disc test is a personality test comprised of four main factors as shown in the diagram above, that are based on Marstons personality traits. Profiling individuals using the disc model allows for more effective motivational strategies, knowledge on the areas in which individuals can develop and can help figure out what individuals ideal sporting environment would be. The table below demonstrates what inferences can be made from having a dominant personality:

Priority:	To focus on the set goal
Strengths:	Setting and striving for high standards
Fears:	Not having control
Growth areas:	ImpatientPoor listening skills
Under stress	Critical
Ideal sporting environment:	Efficient Structured

Although personality testing is useful for finding strategies to help plan how to best adapt to common personality traits within teams or workplace settings, it is a reductionist viewpoint and doesn’t account for individual variation. It also fails to account for individuals having similar levels of two different personality types.

Based on the previous information shown in the table it can be inferred that I would perform my best environment in an environment which i control. It would also be beneficial for me to train in an environment where I control the structure in order to feel I am working towards my goal. However due to my general lack of physical health my runs have not been the standard i hoped they would be at, this has caused me to feel demotivated and miss some training runs. This is  shown in the table below where red means not completed and green means completed in the previous two weeks. 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
3M tempo	Class run	Rest	4m Farlex/Hills	Rest	Rest	6M
4m tempo	Class run	Rest	5m Farlex/Hills	Rest	Rest	8M

To stop me from skipping runs in the future i am going to use nudges to help prompt me into running. Nudges are a behavioural technique that use prompts to increase a behavioural response by presenting someone with a stimuli associated to the behaviour. An example of a nudge would be leaving my running clothes on my chair ready to be used. John (2016) said that multiple different nudges are better than just one to maximise the exposure, so i am going to set up a few different nudges around my house.  Firstly as a nudge Ii will leave my trainers in front of my door, I will also pin my running schedule on my wall and last i will make sure to always set my kit out on my chair where i can see it. Hopefully these three nudges will encourage me to go on more runs

Nudges can be used to help build habits, nudges act as a reminder for habit behaviours. An example of a habit would be going on a run everyday after waking up. The process in which habits are formed is shown in the diagram below.

To apply this model to my day-to-day life  I will be pinning my run schedule to the wall. Seeing the schedule will remind me to go for a run, which causes the sense of pride I get after a run. This sense of pride will cause me to go on more runs the due to the reward; building into a habit. In order to ensure my running pattern becomes a habit, I will be giving myself greater rewards for areas that I am lacking, for example class runs which I have missed quite a few of. If I go on a class run I will buy myself a new plant (which may just be some of my favourite things in the world).

If I manage to induce a habit of running, the next step is maintaining them.  Becker-Philips  suggests that to help maintain goals, you should take small and achievable steps towards it rather than trying to tackle it head-on. This is to minimise failure that may result in the behaviour slipping. An example of which is starting running smaller distances when you first start training, instead of trying to run a marathon everyday.Although progress may eventually be made if I attempted a marathon frequently with no goals in between, it would take a far greater energy investment than the alternative. This would also increase the probability that I gave up entirely. Although Becker-Phillipps discusses how to not give up, she doesn’t explore how to progress within and beyond initial goals, which I feel would be limiting and cause a lack of motivation.

King (2016)  suggested that an effective way to sustain habits is to log activities, so to record runs. Recording activity gives you a log to track yourself with so you can observe if behaviour starts to drop. It was also suggested  that you have to build habits that you enjoy or have suitable rewards or you might not be reinforced enough to maintain behavioural habits. 

Another method to maintaining motivation is by continuously setting bigger goals and challenging yourself. This prevents you from ever reaching the finish line for a goal, as there will always be a new one. For example, if you wanted to maintain the behaviour of running races but were not motivated by repeating the same distance (me), you would motivate yourself with the next goal, the next distance. 

Overview: 

Overall I think these two weeks have been positive as I have been upping my mileage and preparing for the half marathon (two weeks time). I think that understanding my personality type will aid me by helping me figure out where and when will be the best environment to train in.

I have found nudges to be useful, however if i am not in the mood  to run they are very easily ignored. Occasionally the nudges can also feel a bit like shoving and might not be the best method for me as I tend to get annoyed at them . They are also very much limited to reminding me to run not motivating me to go out and do it and after a few days they all became background noise to everything else i have in my house.

2 weeks till half marathon, 14 till the marathon itself at the moment i feel on track but let’s see if i can maintain this progress! 

References:

Egloff, B., & Gruhn, A. J. (1996). Personality and endurance sports. Personality and individual differences, 21(2), 223-229.

Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. (2013). Personality structure and measurement (psychology revivals). Routledge.

Hertwig, R., & Grüne-Yanoff, T. (2017). Nudging and Boosting: Steering or Empowering Good Decisions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(6), 973–986. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617702496

Manson, G. E. (1926). A bibliography of the analysis and measurement of human personality up to 1926. Reprint & Circular Series of the National Research Council, 72.

Peters, B. G., & Zittoun, P. (2016). Contemporary approaches to public policy. Theories, controversies and perspectives. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.