| dc.description.abstract | Social comparative theory, an important theory in psychology and other related fields, explains the process of people′s daily comparative behavior and the mechanism behind the behavior. In the field of social comparison, some scholars have discovered the correlation between competition and social comparison in the past. However, this study found from the relevant literature in the past that few people actually analyze personality or related behavior in a competitive situation. In a competitive situation, will the direction of social comparison be different? And how do individuals take action after experiencing social comparisons? All these are worthy research topics to be explored. Therefore, this study adopted three personality traits related to social comparisons, such as grandiose narcissistic personality, vulnerable narcissistic personality, and self-esteem, to further discuss their differences in the direction of social comparison. At the same time, this study combines social comparison theory with impression management strategies and explores the correlation between social comparison in different directions and various aspects of impression management strategies. On the other hand, with the rise of e-sports in recent years, this research extends the research background to eSports and uses social comparison theory and impression management theory to interpret players′ psychological states and behaviors. In this study, both the experimental method and the general questionnaire were used.
In the experimental method, this study selected a total of four classes on the campus to conduct experiments. By holding the mobile game competition of the Hole.io to initially understand the individual′s social comparison direction and impression management in the context of competitive games behavior. A total of 146 valid questionnaires were collected for the experimental method and analyzed by path analysis. In terms of the general questionnaire method, this study is based on the League of Legends as a case study to investigate the social comparison direction and impression management strategies of the League of Legends players in the game. A total of 485 valid questionnaires were collected by the general questionnaire method and analyzed by the structural equation model.
This study is divided into two parts for discussion. The first part is mainly to explore the relationship between grandiose narcissistic personality, vulnerable narcissistic personality, self-esteem, and social comparison. According to the results of the experimental method, grandiose narcissistic personality tends to make an upward comparison; a vulnerable narcissistic personality has a negative relationship with downward comparison, and self-esteem is not significantly related to both social comparison behaviors. According to the results of the general questionnaire, the grandiose narcissistic personality is significantly related to both social comparison behaviors.; the vulnerable narcissistic personality will tend to make a downward social comparison; and self-esteem has a negative relationship with an upward comparison. The second part discusses the correlation between social comparison and impression management strategies. According to the results of the experimental method, in addition to no significant relationship with exemplification, the downward comparison has a positive relationship with an excuse, justification, disclaimer, entitlement, enhancement, and blasting; in addition to no significant relationship with entitlement and blasting, the upward comparison has a positive relationship with an excuse, justification, disclaimer, enhancement, and exemplification. According to the results of the general questionnaire, whether it is a downward comparison or upward comparison, it has a positive relationship with all impression management strategies （excuse, justification, disclaimer, self-handicapping, ingratiation, entitlement, enhancement, blasting, and exemplification）.
The research contribution of this research is mainly divided into three parts. In the first part, this study explores the social comparison behavior of different personalities in the context of competitive games and fills the gaps in related issue; in the second part, this research combines social comparison theory with impression management behavior to analyze the relationship between the different directions of social comparison and impression management strategy and conduct a more comprehensive discussion to fill the gaps in the related issue. In the third part, the development of the e-sports industry is changing rapidly, its influence is gradually spreading, and there are many issues worth exploring. Therefore, this research combines eSports context with psychology theory and further empirical theoretical framework, which contributes to this related field. | en_US |