Exploring fit between competitiveness and competition in gamification

Exploring fit between competitiveness and competition in gamification

Exploring fit between competitiveness and competition in gamification

Duy Nguyen

Abstract

“Gamification research has mainly focused on interpersonal competitiveness and interpersonal competition in exergames. These concepts describe a disposition towards competing with others and the act of competing with others. The consensus is that high-interpersonal-competitive people enjoy the experience more and perform better when competing with others, whereas low‐interpersonal‐competitive people enjoy it less and perform worst. However, marketing research shows that intrapersonal competitiveness and intrapersonal competition are equally important concepts (Schrock, 2016). These concepts describe a disposition towards competing with themselves and the act of competing with themselves. The purpose of this project was to explore whether congruency between competitiveness and competition predicts perceived playfulness and performance in gamification. Study 1 determined the quartiles for an intrapersonal and interpersonal-competitiveness measures by collecting competitiveness information from many respondents. Respondents who were low (i.e., lower quartile) or high (i.e., upper quartile) in intrapersonal competitiveness were invited to participate in Study 2; those who were low or high in interpersonal competitiveness were invited to participate in Study 3. Study 2 examined intrapersonal competitiveness and intrapersonal competition and Study 3 examined interpersonal competitiveness and interpersonal competition. Results from Studies 2 and 3 show that general congruency did not predict perceived playfulness and performance. Surprisingly, Study 3 found that low-interpersonal-competitive participants performed better than high-interpersonal-competitive participants in the interpersonal-competition condition. Also, high-interpersonal-competitive participants performed better than low-interpersonal-competitive participants in the no-competition condition. Practical implications and study limitations are discussed”.

Reference

Nguyen, D. (2020). Exploring fit between competitiveness and competition in gamification (Doctoral dissertation, Wichita State University). https://soar.wichita.edu/handle/10057/19746

Keywords 

Gamification, research,  competitiveness