Can the Fighting Arts Promote Positive Personality Traits?

When you train in martial arts, do you become more like Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda or Sensei Kreese in Cobra Kai? When martial arts are shown in popular culture, the stereotype tends to go to either one of these extremes—the gentle, open personality vs. the no-mercy mentality. Is there a relationship between martial arts training and personality? Until recently, there has been surprisingly little actual study of this.

The Furious Five Meets the Big Five

Evidence for the physical and psychological benefits of martial arts training is steadily increasing but relation to personality has had relatively little study. Gaia Leuzzi, Benedetto Giardulli, Emanuela Pierantozzi, Filippo Recenti, Andrea Brugnolo, and Marco Testa were interested in trying to address this gap in their work "Personality traits and levels of anxiety and depression among martial artists: a cross-sectional study". The work of these researchers based in Italy, Belgium, and Sweden involved a cross-sectional survey of adult martial artists across Italy aimed at assessing the Big 5 personality traits.

The group of almost 800 adults (~45 years old, 25 percent women) had trained in at least one martial art and had, on average, almost three decades of experience. The largest participation was found for Judo, followed by Karate and Jujitsu, and also included Tai Chi, Aikido, MMA, Tae Kwon Do and more. Analysis suggested that martial arts practitioners have reduced levels of neuroticism and elevated levels of the so-called "positive personality traits" of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness. In comparison to the broader Italian society, anxiety and depression levels were lower. These are really interesting results, but more research is needed, especially due to the cross-sectional nature of this study. How much is the expression of these characteristics due to the training or the inclinations of the people who sought it out?

Sorry Sensei Kreese, But Cobra Kai Loses

Overall, the researchers suggest that "fighting arts, particularly Karate and Judo, emerge as promising avenues for adults seeking innovative or complementary strategies to foster positive personality traits (e.g., openness, conscientiousness) while mitigating anxiety and depression." This is an important observation that complements prior work on physical and psychological benefits. As they further state, "the study might imply that Karate and Judo could serve as innovative approaches for supporting or treating anxiety and depression in the adult population while also addressing physical health" for an all-around benefit.

At the end of the day, the data from this large sample study strongly suggests positive effects of traditional martial arts and the supporting benefits to the holistic human practicing them. To return to where we started, there's likely little need to fear fostering the Cobra Kai characteristics of Sensei Kreese (no mercy mentality is more of a choice than a default outcome) and probably a greater likelihood of opening up like Master Oogway.

(c) E. Paul Zehr (2024)