When in an online world, how often do you gender-bend? That's to say, if you're male, do you find you regularly pick a female avatar, or vice-versa, like many do?

Psychologists at Nottingham Trent University recently conducted a study of online gamers, and published a paper in the journal of Cyberpsychology and Behavior titled "Gender Swapping and Socializing in Cyberspace" with their results. As the name suggests, the psychologists were interested in the choices players made regarding their character or avatar gender in the online world.

As reported by the Guardian, 70 percent of the female survey respondents said they choose male characters in online games that let them customize their character design -- to keep male avatars from hitting on them, or because they think they'll be treated more fairly as men. As for the men, 54 percent admitted to playing females in games, citing a desire to flirt or to explore another element of their personality as primary reasons.

Seems logical, given another finding of the study -- 40 percent of the study's participants reportedly said that online games helped them escape from real-world troubles, and assuming as different an identity as possible makes sense as part of that.

Study co-author Professor Mark Griffiths, of the university's International Gambling Research Unit, noted, "People do find it interesting to manipulate characteristics like gender to see what reaction they get."

[Via The Guardian]