Do chess players develop a particular mentality, approach, thinking and behavior?

Has anyone noticed, while working or thinking or driving and so on...chess involved people behave differently than general population. Is it due to the game involvement or does it reflects the individual pattern susceptible to chess players?

I think the average person is pretty conformity-oriented, and if chess isn't fashionable (which it isn't, at least in the USA), most won't play it for fear of going against the group.  If you play chess, IOW, it's a pretty good indicator that you either don't care about fitting in, or have given up trying, and that makes you pretty different from the norm.

I learned to sit on my hands in other situations not rushing to do the first thing that comes to mind. having patience is very important in my job.

while driving I noticed that most chess players wants to show that they are better than a TOMTOM.
predicting the most optimal route. Somehow they think they have foreseen the most optimal route in advance without a GPS system.
and if a TOMTOM is suggesting a fastest route it must be wrong.

they hate a TOMTOM because it actually knows the fastest route.

Great comments coming. I wish I had a "like" button here as in facebook!

Hi Chessica,

Great question and I like the comment from Gizmodeus. I definitely think we have more patience than the average person. Hello. Road Rage. I'd like to think we're better at seeing the big picture and the small details.

http://youtu.be/BIakZtDmMgo

not really sure how to paste video in the post, but your comment made me think of what happened on The Office

lol. very funny. hmm...maybe they are afraid that I follow the tomtom instead.

I feel chess is: 1 part mathmatics, 1 part learded by trial and error, 1 part psycological, and 1 part experience; but the rest is all luck. One example is when a rated player of 1500 is playing a player rated 2100 and in the middle of the game the player rated 1500 has a clearly lost game and decide to try a last ditch move and the 2100 rated player does not see that they will loose their queen which has been left unprotected while they take the free Bishop that is attacking another Bishop not aware that their own queen is about to be lost.

Lol.. There is a reason that the 2100 player is rated 2100 and not 1200. They don't fall for cheap tricks like that unless it is a bullet game (or sleeping or not caring or very prone to blunders in which case they are overrated).

i know this one yes on the they had a guy play chess against a cpu he was using more of his brain than an avg. guy so yes this is true

I prefer to think that it's the person we are (and the person we're becoming) that we bring to the board, and not the game that shapes the person.

Clearly, everything we do, influences our character, but it is in how we respond to a given situation that allows habits (good or bad) to be formed.

Clearly, out attitudes to the game will reflect an individual's character. 

Emanual Lasker said in Common Sense in Chess "Chess is an old fashion fight."  Chess players are attracted to confrontation. 

That's interesting, because I generally avoid confrontation.

Chess teaches me to be active in all situation. Always force your opponent to defense to blunder :)

Liked ...

chess develops in us to see everything by the scale of reascon, logic and with perfection. it helps us notice the minute details which are very important. moreover it helps us masterthe art of imagination and abstract thinking which is very helpul in life

It develops individuality,that is for sure!On the other hand,devoted chessplayers are a social minority, who in respect either to intelligence,psychology or even sociability,don't show serious deviations from the general population.Having said this,i fail to realise how much difference can they  make in everyday life,apart from being slightly detached from the automatic behaviors that ordinary people are used to reproduce...

Very enlightening comments. Insightful. Thanks.