The Big Five personality traits and online gaming: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Online gaming has become an essential form of entertainment with the advent of technology and a large sway of research has been undertaken to understand its various permutations. Previous reviews have identified associations between the Big Five personality traits and online gaming, but a systematic review and meta-analysis on the association between these constructs has yet to be undertaken. In the current study we aimed to fill this gap in the literature through a systematic review and meta-analysis comprising of 17 studies and 25,634 individuals (AgeMean = 26.55, males = 75%). The findings showed that agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience, and neuroticism were not ubiquitously associated with online gaming. The findings showed that only conscientiousness, across samples, had a protective role in online gaming. Furthermore, there were non-significant variations in the Big Five personality traits associations with online gaming when comparing gamers to the general population, younger versus older participants, casual versus ‘hardcore’ gamers, and high versus low traits (with the exception of neuroticism). As a result of our observations, the underlying mechanisms of individual differences in online gaming remain unclear. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed.

The role of microtransactions in Internet Gaming Disorder and Gambling Disorder: A preregistered systematic review

“…Furthermore, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis on the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and gaming ( Akbari et al, 2021 ) revealed that most personality factors (i.e., agreeableness, openness to new experiences, and extraversion) may be somewhat protective of engaging in problematic gaming behaviours. Neuroticism was found to have either a positive relationship with problem gaming or no relationship at all.…”

“…Conversely, excessive gaming has been shown to be associated with psychiatric disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety) alongside addictive and aggressive behaviours ( Greitemeyer, 2018 , Pontes, 2018 , Wang et al, 2018 ), with a recent large-scale study ( Pontes, Schivinski, Kannen, & Montag, 2022 ) including 123,262 gamers reporting that disordered gaming translates to an average of 34.53 to 40.13 hours of weekly time spent gaming. Additionally, Akbari et al (2021) found that neuroticism, in some cases, is a personality vulnerability factor that may result in an individual developing problematic gaming behaviours. It was thought that this may be due to the fact that neurotic individuals are less confident, and may use gaming as a way to cope with, suppress, or escape negative emotions.…”

The Mediating Role of Contextual Problems and Sensation Seeking in the Association between Substance Use and Mental Health in Adolescents from Northern Chile

“…Future research should study the associations found longitudinally, in order to have a more complete understanding of the influence of these variables and their variations over time. In addition, young people and adolescents do not only present substance use these days, since addiction to social networks and the Internet is growing and is a new challenge [ 60 , 61 , 62 ]; therefore, new research is needed to study both substance and behavioral addictions, whether social networking or online gaming, to determine the moderating role they might present.…”

Individual and Interpersonal Factors Associated with the Incidence, Persistence, and Remission of Internet Gaming Disorders Symptoms in an Adolescents Sample

“…Several studies coincide in highlighting the important role of depressive symptoms in being predisposed to the development of IGDs [ 15 , 48 ]. Furthermore, a recent meta-analysis suggests that conscientiousness is the personality trait that most explains IGDs [ 23 ]. However, there is a debate about the role of time spent playing in the gaming disorder [ 86 ], among other reasons, because some people can play for a long time (e.g., eSports professional players) without developing IGDs.…”

“…At the individual level, impulsivity, aggressiveness, hostility, sensation seeking, anxiety, depression, or social withdrawal have been associated with IGDs [ 11 , 19 ]. In addition, high neuroticism, low conscientiousness, low extraversion, and low agreeableness have been linked to IGDs and Internet use disorder [ 20 , 21 , 22 ], the conscientiousness trait being the one that mainly shows the protective role of the online game [ 23 ]. The most relevant interpersonal factors associated with IGDs have been problematic family relationships, family cohesion difficulties, parents’ mental health problems, and the absence of rules for Internet game use [ 11 ].…”