Game Player Characteristics and Interactive Content: Exploring the Role of Personality and Telepresence in Video Game Violence

The methodological techniques used in past video game content analyses overlook player differences that might play an important role in generating violent content. The current study aimed to explore these differences in terms of personality type, trait hostility, perceived realism, and telepresence tendency. One hundred and sixty participants were assigned to play one of four video games after filling out a series of personality inventories. Content was then evaluated using coding techniques adapted from prior video game content analyses (Smith, Lachlan, & Tamborini, 2003). The findings indicated that game content is highly variable across player characteristics and telepresence tendencies.