Extraversion in games

Abstract

The behavior of a human player in a game expresses the personality of that player. Personality is an important characteristic for modeling the player's profile. In our research we use the five factor model of personality, in which extraversion is a notable factor. Extraversion is the human tendency of being sensitive to rewards. This often results in humans seeking socially rewarding situations. Extraversion plays a prominent part in the in-game behavior of a player. The in-game behavior can be decomposed in 20 different in-game elements. In this paper, we investigate which in-game elements influence the in-game behavior when looking at extraversion only. To answer this question we performed two experiments. The outcome is indicative. Variation in behavior caused by extraversion is seen in 12 of the 20 elements that spanned the 20-dimensional space. Future research will focus on: (1) in-game behavior correlated to the other factors and (2) under what conditions more elements can be added to the characterization of extraversion. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.