The personality of fantasy game players

Abstract

Players of a fantasy Play‐By‐Mail game were compared with matched controls on personality measures of decision‐making style, sex‐role, extraversion, neuroticism, empathy, leisure interests and personality type. Most players were male. On the Bem Sex‐Role Inventory the players were less feminine and less androgynous than controls. They were more introverted, showed lower scores on the scale of empathic concern, and were more likely to describe themselves as ‘scientific’, and to include ‘playing with computers’ and ‘reading’ amongst their leisure interests than controls.