Personality and video gaming: Comparing regular gamers, non-gamers, and gaming addicts and differentiating between game genres

• We assessed video game addiction and favorite game genre in N = 2891.
• Non-gamers and gaming addicts had the highest neuroticism scores.
• Gaming addicts were also characterized by low extraversion and conscientiousness.
• Participants who preferred action games had high extraversion and low neuroticism.
• Non-gamers showed high conscientiousness.

This study deals with personality characteristics of gaming addicts, regular gamers, and non-gamers while differentiating between the gamers' favorite game genres. In order to point out personality differences, we conducted an online survey assessing the Big Five in a total of 2891 participants. Additionally, the gamers were screened with a diagnostic inventory for video game addiction and categorized according to their favorite game genre. We replicated findings in which gaming addicts were described as embodying challenging personality traits such as high neuroticism, and we observed similar results for non-gamers. For regular gamers, we primarily found low neuroticism, which underlines the innocuous nature of video game playing in itself. With respect to the players' favorite game genres, we found a wide variety of personality traits. For example, participants who preferred action games had high extraversion and low neuroticism. With respect to the differences pointed out above, future personality-based studies on gamers should include non-gamers and differentiate between the players’ favorite game genres.