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Saying
You Exercise Creates
Good First Impression
NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - If you want to impress someone, it might help to let
it slip that you exercise regularly, Canadian researchers suggest.
They found that information about your exercise habits bears significant
weight when someone is forming an impression of what type of person
you are.
``Society
has very positive perceptions of people who exercise and very
negative perceptions of sedentary people,'' Dr. Kathleen A. Martin,
of McMaster University in Ontario, told Reuters Health. ``These
perceptions relate to how we think about a person's personality
as well as their appearance,'' she added.
``If you want
to make a good impression on somebody that you're meeting for
the first time, you would want them to know that you are an exerciser,''
she noted. ``Conversely, if you're a couch potato, you might not
want to divulge that information right away.''
Martin and
colleagues asked 627 Canadian men and women to rate an individual's
personality and physical attributes based on a brief description
that included the person's gender and information on whether they
exercised. For comparison, the investigators also included descriptions
of individuals whose exercise habits were unknown.
People described
as exercisers were considered ``a harder worker, more confident,
and to have more self-control'' than non-exercisers and the comparison
individuals, the authors report in a recent issue of the Journal
of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Non-exercisers
were considered to have fewer friends, and to be less brave, smart,
neat, happy, sociable and friendly, than both the exercisers and
the comparison group.
The non-exercisers'
physical attributes were also assumed to be worse than exercisers'
or those in the comparison group. Non-exercisers were more often
perceived as sickly, scrawny and sexually unattractive in comparison
to their supposed healthy, muscular, and sexually attractive counterparts
who exercised regularly.
``For people
who are contemplating whether they should actually keep their
New Year's resolution to exercise, these folks should be aware
that there are potent social benefits associated with exercise--that
is, people will think more positively of you just by virtue of
your exercise habits,'' Martin added.
SOURCE:
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 2000;22:283-291
Reference
Source 89
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