People aspire to experience ideal aspects of their personalities, but the constraints of real life can make such experiences hard to come by. A recent study (Przybylski, Weinstein, Murayama, Lynch, & Ryan, 2012) published in Psychological Science investigated whether people are motivated to play video games that allow them to enact their ideal characteristics. Participants rated aspects of their ideal self with respect to the Big-Five traits, then played three different video games and rated their "game selves" and their intrinsic motivation to play each game. It was determined that participants found games providing opportunities to enact ideal characteristics as more intrinsically motivating, especially if they were highly immersed in the game.

Przybylski, Andrew K., Weinstein, Netta, Murayama, Kou, Lynch, Martin F., & Ryan, Richard M. (2012). The Ideal Self at Play. Psychological Science, 23 (1), 69-76. doi: 10.1177/0956797611418676

The Personality Project

Does playing video games allow people to enact their ideal selves?