Bender is often selfish and insensitive to other people's emotions. At one point, he flushed Leela's beloved pet Nibbler down the toilet, and didn't feel bad about it until the Professor attached an empathy chip to his head, forcing him to feel other people's emotions. He is also quite vain, frequently bragging about how great he is. Bender has no qualms about committing crimes and often steals people's wallets or items from shops. He loves smoking and drinking, though
as a robot he has to drink alcohol to keep him going. (The cigars just make him look cool.) Bender can also be cruel at times and even sometimes treats his own friends badly. He is also extremely lazy, and is often seen sitting around on the couch drinking a beer and/or watching television.
However, he is capable of caring for others and is close friends with Leela and Fry, even though he often acts obnoxious and mean towards them. Bender seems genuinely happy for Leela when she is reunited with her long lost parents and was devastated when he is ordered to kill Fry in Bender's Big Score. Considering he is still upset when he returns to the future it's possible he might have been mourning Fry for nearly a thousand years.
Bender also has a fair few romantic relationships with fembots, such as Countess de la Roca and Angleyne. Bender can be quite emotional at times, despite stating that robots aren't supposed to have emotions, and is empathic towards turtles since they have hard shells and
have difficulty getting up if they fell on their backs, two things they share in common with Bender. He also becomes the leader of a
group of penguins at one point. Bender also idolised the Harlem Globetrotters and wanted to become one of them and started crying when they refused to let him join.
Bender also loves cooking though he had little talent for it and would often cook things that were either inedible or just barely edible. In certain episodes however, he has been able to make food successfully, making a cake for Nibbler's birthday party which was promptly eaten by the Nibblonian.
As a robot, Bender has quite a lot of abilities. He is able to stretch his arms long distances as well as record data in his head, once using this to get Richard Nixon to give him back his body. He also
breathes fire whenever he burps and when he is terrified he sometimes
ejects bricks from his backside which is his variant of defecation. (This is a reference to the slang phrase, to "s**t bricks", meaning to be very scared or surprised.) Although he usually only does this while in a state of shock, he has also done it after eating an Olestra potato chip from the 20th century. Bender is also very strong, even managing to bend a supposedly unbendable girder.
Bender is able to remove numerous parts of his body
such as his head, arms, legs and even eyes. When he is staring at something or someone his eyes frequently extended out of his head. Like turtles he can withdraw into his chest when he chooses to. Bender can also survive in lava for a short time, though when he displays this ability his eyes melted as soon as he came out of the lava. Bender's body has also been used as a popcorn maker, crock pot, and steam engine.