Network-Related Personality and the Agency Question: Multirole Evidence from a Virtual World1

The more consistent a person’s network across roles and the more relevant that consistency is for achievement, the more important agency is for understanding network effects on achievement. With network, experience, and achievement data on persons playing multiple characters in a virtual world, evidence is presented to support two conclusions: (1) About a third of network structure is consistent within persons across roles: that is, those who in one role build networks rich in access to structural holes will build similar networks in other roles; builders of closed networks also tend to build that network across roles. (2) Network consistency across roles contributes almost nothing to predicting achievement, which is instead determined by experience and the network specific to the role. The two conclusions are robust across substantively significant differences in the mix of roles combined in a multirole network (too many roles, difficult combination of roles, or roles played to overlapping audiences).