Let's Begin

Well, I have been studying psychology for some years, getting 2 masters, and now working on finishing my PhD. During this time, I have been avid online gamer. Starting from Ultima Online, to Everquest, Eve, and World of Warcraft, I have been fairly active in the community of gamers. Being the curious gamer and researcher I am, several studies jumped out at me over the years. While we are still waiting for juicy fMRI data from these types of games we can sure get a good demographic description of the gaming world in MMOS.
Recently, several large studies released great info about EverquestII gamers: Sony worked with researchers to survey respondents and the results were interesting....

My specialty in psychology is neuropsychology. This specialty focuses on using testing instruments to diagnose, treat, and describe brain/behavior relationships. Working in my practica, I began to wonder what it would be like to test all these World of Warcraft players I play with. I wondered: does the average Pvper have anger issues? Do women PVE more than men? Is a younger person more apt to 'gank'? What is the rate of ADHD amongst casual vs. hardcore gamers? Does this correlate?

These questions starting popping up when, in my clinical work, I began to test individuals who also played MMOs.