# Persona Dynamics: Unveiling the Impact of Personality Traits on Agents in Text-Based Games

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06868 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.06868/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03300/) (2020)
- [Symbolic Knowledge Distillation: from General Language Models to Commonsense Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07178/) (2021)
- [Bias Runs Deep: Implicit Reasoning Biases in Persona-Assigned LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04892/) (2023)
- [Do the Rewards Justify the Means? Measuring Trade-Offs Between Rewards and Ethical Behavior in the MACHIAVELLI Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03279/) (2023)
- [Interactive Fiction Games: A Colossal Adventure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.05398/) (2019)
- [SwiftSage: A Generative Agent with Fast and Slow Thinking for Complex Interactive Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17390/) (2023)
- [Can Machines Learn Morality? The Delphi Experiment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07574/) (2021)
- [Who is GPT-3? An Exploration of Personality, Values and Demographics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14338/) (2022)
- [Keep CALM and Explore: Language Models for Action Generation in Text-based Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02903/) (2020)
- [Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Natural Language Action Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04636/) (2015)
- [Language Understanding for Text-based Games Using Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.08941/) (2015)
- [Do LLMs Have Distinct and Consistent Personality? TRAIT: Personality Testset designed for LLMs with Psychometrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14703/) (2024)
- [What Would Jiminy Cricket Do? Towards Agents That Behave Morally](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13136/) (2021)
- [Aligning to Social Norms and Values in Interactive Narratives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01975/) (2022)
- [Have Large Language Models Developed a Personality?: Applicability of Self-Assessment Tests in Measuring Personality in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14693/) (2023)
- [NAIL: A General Interactive Fiction Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.04259/) (2019)
- [Generalization in Text-based Games via Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.09968/) (2021)
- [Perceiving the World: Question-guided Reinforcement Learning for Text-based Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.09597/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Compositional Steering of Large Language Models with Steering Tokens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05062/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Artificial agents are increasingly central to complex interactions and decision-making tasks, yet aligning their behaviors with desired human values remains an open challenge. In this work, we investigate how human-like personality traits influence agent behavior and performance within text-based interactive environments. We introduce PANDA: Personality Adapted Neural Decision Agents, a novel method for projecting human personality traits onto agents to guide their behavior. To induce personality in a text-based game agent, (i) we train a personality classifier to identify what personality type the agent's actions exhibit, and (ii) we integrate the personality profiles directly into the agent's policy-learning pipeline. By deploying agents embodying 16 distinct personality types across 25 text-based games and analyzing their trajectories, we demonstrate that an agent's action decisions can be guided toward specific personality profiles. Moreover, certain personality types, such as those characterized by higher levels of Openness, display marked advantages in performance. These findings underscore the promise of personality-adapted agents for fostering more aligned, effective, and human-centric decision-making in interactive environments.