Psychological traits of League of Legends players who prefer different positions and roles in the game

Abstract

Understanding the psychological characteristics of video game players provides game designers with greater opportunities to develop personalized gaming experiences. In this light, this study examined the relationships between preferred roles and positions in the video game League of Legends (LoL) and players’ indicated basic personality traits, empathy, and social rank styles. The study involved 3220 LoL players from around the world. Canonical covariance analysis was applied, with the left set of variables comprising preferences for positions and roles in LoL (Top, Mid, Jungle, Bot, Support positions; Tank, Fighter, Assassin, Mage, Marksman, and Support roles), and the right set representing personality traits from the HEXACO model, dimensions of empathy, and social rank styles. Three pairs of significant quasi-canonical functions were extracted. The structure of the first pair of quasi-canonical functions suggests that preferences for the Fighter and Assassin roles and, to a lesser extent, the Jungle position, as well as for avoidance of the Support role, are associated with a lack of affective resonance and honesty/humility and high affective dissonance, emotional stability, ruthless self-promotion, coalition avoidance, and uncooperativeness. The second pair of quasi-canonical functions indicates that preferences for the Jungle and Support positions and the Support role, as well as for avoidance of the Top position, are linked to dominant leadership, coalition building, extraversion, cognitive empathy, and openness to experience. The third pair of quasi-canonical functions implies that preferences for the Mid position and the Mage and Marksman roles are associated with ruthless self-promotion, emotional instability, a lack of honesty/humility, and affective dissonance. The results of this study suggest that personality characteristics are grouped differently in the latent space depending on which style of play individuals prefer, indicating that there are gaming patterns associated with specific psychological personality profiles.