The Relationship Between Video Game Character Preferences and Aggressive and Prosocial Personality Traits

Previous research on video games showed that violent and prosocial content influences the player's behavior and is associated with their personality. However, it has often been criticized that the video games are poorly matched (i.e., relative to neutral video games, they may differ not only in their violent and prosocial content but also on a variety of dimensions), so it is unclear what video game property exactly accounts for the video game's impact. This criticism can be addressed when different in-game roles, varying in terms of aggression/prosocial behavior, among a single game are investigated. The present research focused on the class-based first-person shooter Overwatch. Using a large sample of actual gamers (N = 2,323), we assessed the relation between players' in-game role preference and a range of personality traits. Preference for aggressive (relative to prosocial) roles was linked to a more aggressive and less prosocial type of personality. Self-perceived aggressive in-game behavior also correlated positively with aggressive traits and negatively with empathic traits. However, this was only observed using self-report measure and not in a smaller sample with objective playtime measures. Overall, it appears that one's favored role in a video game relates to certain personality traits. Future perspectives on video games, in-game role, personality, and social behavior are discussed.