Intelligence, personality and game play: A pilot study

Presently, there exists a lack of published results on the relationship between intelligence and personality and the choices made in decision making experiments (“game play”). The aim of this study is to provide insight into any relationships between personality, intelligence, and game play, looking at both isolated game behavior as well as learning behavior. It is hoped that results may provide direction for further research on a larger scale.

The sample includes 42 university students divided into 5 sessions who played a series of games (Ultimatum Game and the Minimal Contributing Set game (MCS)).  The participants also took an intelligence test based on Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences and a personality test based on the Big Five OCEAN Factors. (see Gardner 2000 and Goldberg 1992). These tests result in scores for 7 intelligences (Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Spatial-Visual, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal) and 5 personality scores (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism).  The sample includes students from a variety of disciplines, and the sessions were scheduled in such a way as to have a variety of majors per session as there is reason to believe that people from different backgrounds might have different types of intelligences. (For example, it might be anticipated that a Dance major would have higher Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence than some other majors, and that a Math major would have higher Mathematical-Logical intelligence than some other majors.)

Preliminary analysis suggests some key results: Interpersonal Intelligence and Agreeableness are related to higher offers in the Ultimatum Game and MCS game, Agreeableness is related to more acceptance of Ultimatum Game proposals, Neuroticism is related to more free-riding in the MCS game, Neuroticism is related to lower offer quantities in the Ultimatum Game and MCS game, and Interpersonal Intelligence and Openness are related to faster changes in behavior in both games. More in-depth analysis will be done.

Goldberg, Lewis R.  (1992). "The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure." Psychological assessment 4.1: 26.

Gardner, Howard. (2000). Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st century.  Basic Books.