Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Personality: 223 responses+

Edit: I have tallied up through about 3pm EST Sept. 29, 2009, with 640 responses. You can see that analysis here.


These are the results of 223 responses. We are still getting more in, of course :)

You can see some of the raw data here and here. It required manual tallying the data, since I couldn't figure out how to get Excel or google docs to tally it for me.

When looking at this data, you must remember that those who responded (voluntarily) found this chart via either my blog, a person who reads this blog, or the forum posts Arael made on wowhead and mmo-champion.

Update of the first charts I had posted:

As you can see, most of the responses were introverts (I's) and druids :) What do you think this mass of introverts means, particularly in comparison to the large chunk of extroverts (E's) found among the ENFJ's? Something to ponder.

Raw results vs World Pop Statistics:


This I found also interesting, and helps highlight the difference in introverts vs extroverts that responded (granted, 223 is a small pool to look at). Most notable is the difference in large numbers of:

ENFJ INFP INTJ INTP

...and in the relatively small numbers of:

ENFP ESTJ ESFP ESFJ ISFJ

What do you think causes it? Something else to ponder on. Factors include:
  • Those who play WoW
  • Those who found this survey
  • Those who decided to answer the survey


Guild "Jobs"/Roles compared to class, broken up by MBTI types:

(click to enlarge)

Most who answered the survey and put down a role said that they were class leaders or role leaders, either voluntarily or found themselves locked into such a position.

For a quick breakdown and synopsis of what each type E/I, S/N, T/F, J/P is like, check out http://www.personalitytype.com/career_quiz


Guild Masters: these tended to be the Intuitive types rather than sensors ("big picture" types, inventive, looking to the future), Thinkers rather than Feelers (rational, don't take things personally), and those who Judge rather than Perceive (can make decisions, schedule-driven, rule-driven). This makes sense to me. I/E didn't factor in as much. What I would like to look into more is who among these GMs were the "casuals" vs the hardcores, and how raid style plays into the GM's personality.

Raid Leaders: it surprises me the number of Introverts that claim to be raid leaders; again, something to perhaps look into raid style for more conclusion, and is probably also affected by the sheer number of I's vs E's in this data pool. Again, Thinkers are favored over Feelers (objective, direct, able to see flaws without bias for feelings), and Intuition over Sensing (creativity, like to figure things out, big picture).

Class/Role leaders: these are pretty even across the board, and it seems personality has little impact on players serving in this role. Thinkers seem to be favored a bit over Feelers (honest, direct, able to see flaws without the bias of feelings), though Feelers themselves make a good standing in this role as they tend to be very diplomatic, and often serve the role as a go-between for the other officers/RL/GM and the raid members.

Bloggers: the vast majority are intuitive introverts (IN types). It seems ironic, doesn't it, that a bunch of shy people are sharing themselves and their ideas through a blog? I am amused by this, and understanding of it, being an INFP myself :) Are these types more drawn to blogging than others? What sorts of blogs (guides, theorycraft, funny stories, accomplishments) does one type more often have over another? This may be answered somewhat by raid style.

Web Admins: your IT people. Not too surprised that this is dominated by introverts! They are also predominately judgers rather than perceivers: they are serious and can concentrate on things like code. Judgers also tend to be the ones who can more easily make decisions for themselves, and who are most focused on *finishing* a project over just *starting* one... /whistles innocently*

Nannies: these are the people who find themselves dealing with the guild drama. They've cropped up in every personality, meaning that most of those who answered the survey often find themselves pulled into such roles, regardless of their personality.

Recruitment officers: not all guilds have this role fall on the GM, so I broke it out out of curiousity. One noticeable bump is that most are Thinkers rather than Feelers, following the same logic as with leading a guild or a raid: objective thinking, seeing flaws without bias, and aren't as likely to be bent into recruiting someone into raids that is only there because they talk pretty or because they're so-and-so's younger brother, even though he stands in void zones.


~So, what are your thoughts? I'll certainly be throwing up more charts and detailed comparisons over time, but even this alone is plenty for a mind to chew on!~

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was ISFJ on a number of the sites that you linked...and am a raid leader! Not sure what that means about me ;-)

Although, as I think about it, I'm not sure which part of my acronym fell under "likes to plan and organize", but I would tend to think that falls squarely into the category of leading raids, no? So perhaps it's not so surprising to see so many introverts falling into this role if they display the same characteristics?

The data presented is certainly interesting, and provides some food for thought.

Atropus said...

INTP, I'm a raid leader, I have a dk tank that also does dps on occasion.

Aertimus said...

What the heck are all the other ESTJs in the world doing as a hobby?!?!?

Kae said...

I dunno, Aert :D They may play too, 233 is a pretty small sample size when you consider the number who play wow!

Beru, it's just focusing on the trends shown by what people responded with :) Personally, I'm a horrible raid leader because I worry too much about making everyone happy, and the stress of it eats me alive because I'm such a perfectionist on myself. It burnt me out, though not before giving me many panic attacks.

I was just surprised about introverts being raid leaders since... well, they're introverts :D I guess leading a bunch of people from behind a computer screen isn't as socially stressful as leading a bunch of people in person?

Aertimus said...

I know I have collided head to head with some people in WoW over WoW being "just a game". I've always been blown away by this, because to me it isn't "just a game" its a guild full of people and friends interacting and trying to work together. I have often wondered if I take the comments of "just a game" as a personal attack against my friendships in part because I am an extrovert. I have also wondered if some introverts find it easier to lead or even play with people in WoW because they are separated by a computer screen.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. The Innkeeper at PPI (Larisa) sent me your link because she knows in RL I'm an expert in Jungian psychology and the MBTI. She asked me to comment in a post which I will probably do, although I prefer to keep my professional activities out of the blogosphere.

I wouldn't worry to much about the sample *size* which is perfectly OK. The larger issues of respondent bias is a problem but you're not really trying for a scientific survey here so not to worry. Besides, from an MBTI perspective your results are what one would expect.

But I'll think about this some more and post. Given my posting schedule it might not be until much later in the month, but maybe I can squeeze it in.

Elnia (The Bartender)

Malchome said...

INTJ Here

Blogger, Guild Master, Raid Leader, Tank, Healer, DPS, 1 of each class at level cap.

Kae as for me I know that being the that some of the INTJs prefer not to lead but lacking someone that can lead will lead it themselves. Like to lead and leading are not always the same thing.

Duskhawk said...

Given how much I, as an iNTj *love* surveys, quizzes, tests, etc. that may tell me something about myself, I think introspective types are more likely to self-select for these. If you randomly sampled from the overall WoW population, you might get a larger spread of types... or, i's are more likely to play online games than e's... because it's "safer" to socialize online than face-to-face.

Am I the only iNTj that can't get into druids? >.>

Anonymous said...

lol. Intp here, I noticed we have a lot of 'Nanny' and 'Class Lead' in the breakdown my each of the 8 components. I'd definately say that I wind up dealing with the drama more than the rest of my group. I find it funny though that I'm a rogue (and have only been a rogue for three years, despite trying other classes) and it's not too popular of a class choice for intps. But as we grasp on to something we try to learn all about it - so with an everchanging and 'mathy' class, it's difficult to lose interest. Thanks for your research, it's enlightening!

Ealinore said...

This was very intriguing! I would be interested to know if you looked at whether or not the players were male or female and the demographics involved with class selection based on gender of the player. I know that there are a lot of female druids out there! (Myself included!) However, I don't know if there would be enough females out there to truly put a dent in the data.

I would be curious to know what most people were actually surprised by. Often times a study like this empirically confirms what our intuition already tells us. (I am letting my biases show a little too much there...INFJ and a therapist in training.) :)

Do you have plans for a follow up study?

Keep up the fascinating good work!

Kae said...

I am in the process of adding in more of the responses and checking out further results. I'm not exactly an excel wiz, so it's taking me some time to tally up the non-numerical responses. I imagine the wow.com highlight will add a lot more data to the survey pile... good timing, I suppose, that I added in the gender question just before the highlight brought more traffic over :)

Introverts United! ...or something. Hehe.

Anonymous said...

Can you add graphs where you list the breakdowns as percentages, and normalize across types? It's really hard to draw any inferences from the graphs, because the scale difference between types is so large...

Kae said...

I added several graphs like that in the new analysis, which is linked at the top of this post. :)

Aertimus said...

Congrats on the wow.com link to this. I still think it is really awesome!

Kae said...

Hehe Aert, I nearly fell out of my chair when my visits spiked up over 3k on Tuesday. Led to more data, though! More comfortable with the sample size, now. It really is interesting, and I'm glad Elnia explained the number of IN's!

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