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People who are addicted to playing computer games show some of the same personality traits as people with Asperger’s syndrome. This is the conclusion of Dr John Charlton of the University of Bolton and Ian Danforth of Whitman College, USA. Their results will be presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in Dublin today, Thursday 3 April 2008. The researchers questioned 391 computer game players, 86 per cent of whom were male. They considered relationships between addiction, ‘high engagement’ and personality. They found that the closer the players got to addiction the more likely they were to display negative personality traits. And that as players showed more signs of addiction they were increasingly characterized by three personality traits that would normally be associated with Asperger’s, a variety of high functioning autism. These were neuroticism, and lack of extraversion, and agreeableness. The researchers believe that these people are not classifiable as having Asperger’s syndrome but share some of the same characteristics because they find it easier to empathize with computer systems than other people. |