Assessing the Impact of Personality on Affective States from Video Game Communication

TL;DR

This study explores how personality traits influence emotional expression in chat during a collaborative game, revealing correlations that could enhance affective computing and game design.

Contribution

It provides initial evidence linking specific personality traits to affective states expressed in text-based communication during gameplay.

Findings

Lower self-competence predicts confusion

Vulnerability to stress correlates with personal annoyance

Anxiety-prone players express more anger

Abstract

Individual differences in personality determine our preferences, traits and values, which should similarly hold for the way we express ourselves. With current advancements and transformations of technology and society, text-based communication has become ordinary and often even surpasses natural voice conversations -- with distinct challenges and opportunities. In this exploratory work, we investigate the impact of personality on the tendency how players of a team-based collaborative alternate reality game express themselves affectively. We collected chat logs from eleven players over two weeks, labeled them according to their affective state, and assessed the connection between them and the five-factor personality domains and facets. After applying multi-linear regression, we found a series of reasonable correlations between (combinations of) personality variables and expressed affect -- as increased confusion could be predicted by lower self-competence (C1), personal annoyance by vulnerability to stress (N6) and expressing anger occured more often in players that are prone to anxiety (N1), less humble and modest (A5), think less carefully before they act (C6) and have higher neuroticism (N). Expanding the data set, sample size and input modalities in subsequent work, we aim to confirm these findings and reveal even more interesting connections that could inform affective computing and games user research equally.