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How does competition enable social comparison? A comparison of behavior in competitive internet-based games

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Abstract

This study investigated how different narcissistic personality types (grandiose and vulnerable) create differences in comparison behaviors. Taking social comparison theory as a starting point, this study extends the research on competitive games by exploring how different personalities operate in competitive contexts and analyzing the correlation between manifested behaviors and self-presentation tactics. This study adopted questionnaires and purposive sampling for analysis. Students from four higher education classes were the sample in the first survey, during which we hosted a Hole.io competition in order to have a preliminary understanding of participants’ social comparison and impression management behaviors in the context of a competitive game. For Survey 2, we employed the well-known game League of Legends to investigate its players’ social comparison and self-presentation tactics. Differences were found in the upward and downward comparison tendencies of different personalities in the first and second surveys. In the area of impression management, both surveys found that upward and downward comparison behaviors related to different self-presentation tactics.

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, National Central University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

    Yi-Hsuan Lee, Wen-Ying Chang & ShangRu Li

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  1. Yi-Hsuan Lee
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  2. Wen-Ying Chang
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  3. ShangRu Li
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection were performed by ShangRu Li and Yi-Hsuan Lee. Data analysis was performed by Yi-Hsuan Lee and Wen-Ying Chang. The first draft of the manuscript was written by all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. English editing was performed by Yi-Hsuan Lee. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yi-Hsuan Lee.

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Appendix 1: Hole.io game interface

Appendix 1: Hole.io game interface

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Lee, YH., Chang, WY. & Li, S. How does competition enable social comparison? A comparison of behavior in competitive internet-based games. Inf Technol Manag (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-024-00419-0

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