Personality perception in Game of Thrones: Character consensus and assumed similarity.

Abstract

This study examined Big Five and Dark Tetrad personality perception for 56 characters from the popular TV show Game of Thrones—and the book series that inspired it, A Song of Ice and Fire—by 309 fans recruited from 3 relevant subreddits. Specifically, we examined consensus—the extent to which multiple perceivers (participants) rate 1 or more targets (characters) similarly—and assumed similarity—the extent to which perceivers (participants) see targets (characters) as they see themselves. Using cross-classified structural equation models, we found that consensus correlations were significant for all Big Five and Dark Tetrad traits, ranging from .54 for narcissism to .83 for agreeableness (M = .66, SD = .10). Assumed similarity slopes were positive (range: .07–.29; M = .15, SD = .06) and significant for all traits except conscientiousness and open-mindedness. Thus, raters reliably assumed that characters were similar to themselves on 7 of 9 traits. Exploratory sex-differences analyses showed no sex-of-character effects but significant sex-of-perceiver effects for conscientiousness, open-mindedness, and Machiavellianism; women perceived characters to be higher on these traits than men. In addition, women (vs. men) rated themselves as higher on extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness but lower on Machiavellianism. We also present rankings for characters with the highest and lowest scores on each trait. Broadly, this work is important for understanding not only how our perceptions of personality generalize to fictional characters but also how we use fiction characters—and our perceptions of their personalities—to better understand our own social world.

Parasocial interactions with media characters: the role of perceived and actual sociodemographic and psychological similarity

“…The differentiation between actual and perceived similarity is seldom made in media research (for exceptions, see Cohen and Hershman-Shitrit, 2017;Webster and Campbell, 2022), although the assumption that similarity is essential was adapted from social interactions (Klimmt et al, 2006;Greenwood and Aldoukhov, 2023). As research in social interactions shows that actual and perceived similarity can influence different aspects of interactions, it is important to integrate this differentiation also in the mediated context, as they can possibly have different effects on PSI.…”

“…The Big Five (Jackson et al, 2010;Tidwell et al, 2013), loneliness (Stevens and Westerhof, 2006;Mund and Johnson, 2021), and selfesteem Orth, 2014, 2016) similarities have been examined in the context of social interactions but not in mediated encounters (Cohen and Hershman-Shitrit, 2017;Webster and Campbell, 2022). They were chosen as these psychological traits are often analyzed in parasocial research.…”

“…In mediated settings, this distinction between actual and perceived similarity is seldomly made (for exceptions, see Cohen and Hershman-Shitrit, 2017;Webster and Campbell, 2022), and thus, forms a research gap in similarity research in the context of viewers' PSI with media characters. Based on the research on social interactions, the effects from actual and perceived similarity should be analyzed and compared for viewer PSI with characters.…”